Good morning to you all!
As I type out this Rant, I am starting out my typing at a little past 1:30 in the morning.
Yes, I am having trouble sleeping again, but this time, at least I can say that I know why.
There is lots of stuff on my mind, and after about four hours of sleep—I fell asleep really early yesterday—I guess my mind can only take so much thinking, and since I do my best thinking while awake, that’s why I am up now.
This has been another busy week for me—the past two months or so have been extremely hectic, with one thing or another that I have had to do—and honestly, I now know why I hate being retired—because I don’t feel like I am retired at all, what with everything I have to do at home, coupled with my remote job.
As I type out this Rant, I am starting out my typing at a little past 1:30 in the morning.
Yes, I am having trouble sleeping again, but this time, at least I can say that I know why.
There is lots of stuff on my mind, and after about four hours of sleep—I fell asleep really early yesterday—I guess my mind can only take so much thinking, and since I do my best thinking while awake, that’s why I am up now.
This has been another busy week for me—the past two months or so have been extremely hectic, with one thing or another that I have had to do—and honestly, I now know why I hate being retired—because I don’t feel like I am retired at all, what with everything I have to do at home, coupled with my remote job.
It has just been too much.
More about that in the coming months, but let me tell you two things that happened to me this week that pretty much kind of illustrate not much of anything, but simply add to the stress that I have been going through lately.
Early in the week, I decided it was time for my son and I to get our monthly haircuts, so the two of us went to the barber to get our coifs done.
What should have been a simple exercise turned into one that really took me for a loop.
We have been going to this particular barber for years and years, and it is one of those old-fashioned barbers, with about a dozen chairs there and about the same amount of barbers working all at one time.
So, as usual, we got there, asked for any of the barbers that were available, and my son took one of the lady barbers there, and I took one of the men.
We went to the barbers’ respective chairs, and on my end, I told the barber what I wanted him to do, and with little hair on my head, he should have worked on my head for about five minutes without incident, but something interesting happened.
Again, my son and I have been going to this particular barber shop forever, and yes, we have been gong to the shop during this pandemic period.
We both normally wear our masks even though we are both inoculated against the virus, and have worn our masks since this whole mess began in earnest in February 2020 or so.
So I told the barber what I wanted him to do, and normally during the pandemic period, the barber asks me to move my mask when he has to cut portions of my hair, like my sideburns, and when he is done, I just loop the mask back on my ear, never exposing my nose or mouth to him.
That worked well until this particular day, when the barber did not ask me to move my mask for the moment it would take to do my sideburns—he literally took my mask off himself.
I told him that he should not have done that, grabbed the mask, and when he cut my sideburns, I simply held the mask over my mouth and nose, and then put it back over my ears when he was done doing what he was doing.
“I want the mask on, and you really should not have taken it off without asking me,” I told him as he continued to cut my hair.
When he finished, I paid for both myself and my son, and I told the cashier—who is also the owner of the place—what had happened.
He knows my son and I not by name but by face, and he said to me, “No, that shouldn’t have happened,” and he apologized to me.
I give him credit, he went over to the barber and told him not do what he did ever again.
I spoke to my son about it when we got to the car, and he told me that yes, this time the mask was handled a bit differently by his barber too—she asked him to take it off while she cut his hair rather than just move it out of the way as had been done since the pandemic began, so I was not too happy when I heard that.
As I told the barber, I don’t like wearing this thing either, I wish I didn’t have to wear it, but I choose to even though I have been inoculated since April, and he had no right to take it upon himself to take the thing off of me without my permission.
The next thing happened yesterday, and it is as bizarre a situation as I have ever been a part of.
I went food shopping in a local supermarket, doing it alone as I have been doing since my son went back to work during the week.
I walked the store’s aisles, picked the stuff on my list, and went to the self-checkout area.
The store was packed, the lines were long, and finally, it was my turn to load my groceries and check them out.
I did just that, and as usual, I took my debit card out to pay for my purchases.
I put the card into the slot used tor debit and credit cards, and my card was rejected, which is not that unusual. For whatever reason, my card might be a little bent, or the chip portion a little dirty, and this has happened before, so there was no panic; I just tried to straighten the card out and I wiped off the chip area.
But for some reason, I did not have a good grip on the card, and it flew out of my hand, and somehow, it found its way into the slight opening that exists between the scanning device and the outside of the machine, and it fell right into that crevice.
I called over a store worker and explained the situation. Heck, if I wanted to do this on purpose, I could not have done this as precisely as I did by mistake.
The worker went to get the store manager, and she looked over the situation as the worker opened up the machine, “I don’t know if we can find the card, because I have never had to open up the machine before,” the manager said to me.
As they opened the machine on the top and the bottom, I told the manager, “That is unacceptable. Yes, this was my fault entirely, but I am not leaving here without the card, because I am not going to have a stray, active card left here, and what I would have to do in the bank to rectify not having the card … no, I can’t leave here without the card, because I can’t pay for my groceries that I just checked out without it.”
They brought over another worker, who also scanned the now-open machine, and he couldn’t find anything either at first. Then the three of them laughed about the situation, and I told them that their laughing was making the situation even more frantic for me, and they finally calmed down.
As I waved away people who wanted to use my checkout line, they actually located the card. It was literally lodged on a thin ledge within the mechanism, and again, I couldn’t have done a better job of this if I wanted to .
They then retrieved some thin wrenches and other tools to get the card out of the machine, but to no avail.
Then, one of the workers said, “I think I can get this if I can get a pair of tweezers,” so he went to retrieve one.
And as he left to get the tweezers, a man comes up on the line and starts to put his groceries down. I tell him, “Look, the line is out of order now, so I would suggest you go elsewhere for checkout.”
He looks at me like he doesn’t understand a word I am saying, and he proceeds to put all his groceries down. I repeat what I said, but he either did not understand any English or he was hearing deficient. I think it was more the former than the latter, but if he opened up his eyes, he would have seen that the entire mechanism was open, so why he continued to put his groceries down there for checkout …. Maybe he was not English-impaired or hearing impaired, perhaps he was just stupid-impaired.
But whatever the case, I can’t talk about anybody being stupid because what happened was my fault, and I guess you could say that I was stupid myself for it to happen in the first place.
Anyway, the worker got the tweezers, and lo and behold, he got the card out of the machine within about two minutes or so.
I thanked him, shook his hand, and he told me I would have to re-scan everything, which as opposed to not having the card in my possession, was nothing with nothing.
And the English-impaired/hearing-impaired/stupid-impaired fellow simply had to wait some more before I could re-scan everything. Once again I told him that he should go to another line, but he looked at me like I was speaking some ancient language that he did not understand, so he kept on loading groceries.
I paid with my card—I don’t remember clearly, but I must have held it with two hands this time as I put it into the card reader, and it took it on the first time this time around—and I left the store, embarrassed as all hell, but at least I left the store with my debit card in my wallet, not lodged in some machine.
So no, I don’t have to wonder why I can’t sleep … too many things happening to me and around me to make me calm enough to hit the hay.
I could dream of sheep, but I will bet that one of those sheep would give me some type of argument about one thing or another, puling the wool over my eyes but not letting me go to dreamland on my own terms.
Anyway, I am going to take Monday off for Columbus Day—yes, Columbus Day, that is what it is and that is what I am taking off for, not any other day that people want to call his holiday (don’t get me started), so I will next speak with you on Tuesday.
Have a great weekend, a great Columbus Day, and don’t go to any barbers or supermarkets right now—I don’t want to put the whammy on your experience in these places where I not only got a haircut and purchased my groceries, but also got a bit of agita that I didn’t even have to pay for.
Woe is me … still bald and I can’t fight my way out of those vinyl bags we have to use in the supermarkets now.
What is next on my agita agenda?
Only my hairdresser knows for sure … .
More about that in the coming months, but let me tell you two things that happened to me this week that pretty much kind of illustrate not much of anything, but simply add to the stress that I have been going through lately.
Early in the week, I decided it was time for my son and I to get our monthly haircuts, so the two of us went to the barber to get our coifs done.
What should have been a simple exercise turned into one that really took me for a loop.
We have been going to this particular barber for years and years, and it is one of those old-fashioned barbers, with about a dozen chairs there and about the same amount of barbers working all at one time.
So, as usual, we got there, asked for any of the barbers that were available, and my son took one of the lady barbers there, and I took one of the men.
We went to the barbers’ respective chairs, and on my end, I told the barber what I wanted him to do, and with little hair on my head, he should have worked on my head for about five minutes without incident, but something interesting happened.
Again, my son and I have been going to this particular barber shop forever, and yes, we have been gong to the shop during this pandemic period.
We both normally wear our masks even though we are both inoculated against the virus, and have worn our masks since this whole mess began in earnest in February 2020 or so.
So I told the barber what I wanted him to do, and normally during the pandemic period, the barber asks me to move my mask when he has to cut portions of my hair, like my sideburns, and when he is done, I just loop the mask back on my ear, never exposing my nose or mouth to him.
That worked well until this particular day, when the barber did not ask me to move my mask for the moment it would take to do my sideburns—he literally took my mask off himself.
I told him that he should not have done that, grabbed the mask, and when he cut my sideburns, I simply held the mask over my mouth and nose, and then put it back over my ears when he was done doing what he was doing.
“I want the mask on, and you really should not have taken it off without asking me,” I told him as he continued to cut my hair.
When he finished, I paid for both myself and my son, and I told the cashier—who is also the owner of the place—what had happened.
He knows my son and I not by name but by face, and he said to me, “No, that shouldn’t have happened,” and he apologized to me.
I give him credit, he went over to the barber and told him not do what he did ever again.
I spoke to my son about it when we got to the car, and he told me that yes, this time the mask was handled a bit differently by his barber too—she asked him to take it off while she cut his hair rather than just move it out of the way as had been done since the pandemic began, so I was not too happy when I heard that.
As I told the barber, I don’t like wearing this thing either, I wish I didn’t have to wear it, but I choose to even though I have been inoculated since April, and he had no right to take it upon himself to take the thing off of me without my permission.
The next thing happened yesterday, and it is as bizarre a situation as I have ever been a part of.
I went food shopping in a local supermarket, doing it alone as I have been doing since my son went back to work during the week.
I walked the store’s aisles, picked the stuff on my list, and went to the self-checkout area.
The store was packed, the lines were long, and finally, it was my turn to load my groceries and check them out.
I did just that, and as usual, I took my debit card out to pay for my purchases.
I put the card into the slot used tor debit and credit cards, and my card was rejected, which is not that unusual. For whatever reason, my card might be a little bent, or the chip portion a little dirty, and this has happened before, so there was no panic; I just tried to straighten the card out and I wiped off the chip area.
But for some reason, I did not have a good grip on the card, and it flew out of my hand, and somehow, it found its way into the slight opening that exists between the scanning device and the outside of the machine, and it fell right into that crevice.
I called over a store worker and explained the situation. Heck, if I wanted to do this on purpose, I could not have done this as precisely as I did by mistake.
The worker went to get the store manager, and she looked over the situation as the worker opened up the machine, “I don’t know if we can find the card, because I have never had to open up the machine before,” the manager said to me.
As they opened the machine on the top and the bottom, I told the manager, “That is unacceptable. Yes, this was my fault entirely, but I am not leaving here without the card, because I am not going to have a stray, active card left here, and what I would have to do in the bank to rectify not having the card … no, I can’t leave here without the card, because I can’t pay for my groceries that I just checked out without it.”
They brought over another worker, who also scanned the now-open machine, and he couldn’t find anything either at first. Then the three of them laughed about the situation, and I told them that their laughing was making the situation even more frantic for me, and they finally calmed down.
As I waved away people who wanted to use my checkout line, they actually located the card. It was literally lodged on a thin ledge within the mechanism, and again, I couldn’t have done a better job of this if I wanted to .
They then retrieved some thin wrenches and other tools to get the card out of the machine, but to no avail.
Then, one of the workers said, “I think I can get this if I can get a pair of tweezers,” so he went to retrieve one.
And as he left to get the tweezers, a man comes up on the line and starts to put his groceries down. I tell him, “Look, the line is out of order now, so I would suggest you go elsewhere for checkout.”
He looks at me like he doesn’t understand a word I am saying, and he proceeds to put all his groceries down. I repeat what I said, but he either did not understand any English or he was hearing deficient. I think it was more the former than the latter, but if he opened up his eyes, he would have seen that the entire mechanism was open, so why he continued to put his groceries down there for checkout …. Maybe he was not English-impaired or hearing impaired, perhaps he was just stupid-impaired.
But whatever the case, I can’t talk about anybody being stupid because what happened was my fault, and I guess you could say that I was stupid myself for it to happen in the first place.
Anyway, the worker got the tweezers, and lo and behold, he got the card out of the machine within about two minutes or so.
I thanked him, shook his hand, and he told me I would have to re-scan everything, which as opposed to not having the card in my possession, was nothing with nothing.
And the English-impaired/hearing-impaired/stupid-impaired fellow simply had to wait some more before I could re-scan everything. Once again I told him that he should go to another line, but he looked at me like I was speaking some ancient language that he did not understand, so he kept on loading groceries.
I paid with my card—I don’t remember clearly, but I must have held it with two hands this time as I put it into the card reader, and it took it on the first time this time around—and I left the store, embarrassed as all hell, but at least I left the store with my debit card in my wallet, not lodged in some machine.
So no, I don’t have to wonder why I can’t sleep … too many things happening to me and around me to make me calm enough to hit the hay.
I could dream of sheep, but I will bet that one of those sheep would give me some type of argument about one thing or another, puling the wool over my eyes but not letting me go to dreamland on my own terms.
Anyway, I am going to take Monday off for Columbus Day—yes, Columbus Day, that is what it is and that is what I am taking off for, not any other day that people want to call his holiday (don’t get me started), so I will next speak with you on Tuesday.
Have a great weekend, a great Columbus Day, and don’t go to any barbers or supermarkets right now—I don’t want to put the whammy on your experience in these places where I not only got a haircut and purchased my groceries, but also got a bit of agita that I didn’t even have to pay for.
Woe is me … still bald and I can’t fight my way out of those vinyl bags we have to use in the supermarkets now.
What is next on my agita agenda?
Only my hairdresser knows for sure … .
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