Happy New Year!

What did you do for New Year’s Eve?  Did you party?  Did you make some resolutions that you will never keep?  Did you check out the blue moon?  Did you even stay up until midnight to watch the new year come rolling in?  I’m going to share with you how I spent part of my New Year’s Eve.

I had to work for part of the day.  Our office closed early (1pm) and it was a pretty uneventful morning.  We did a little potluck at work amongst those of us who actually worked and I made Cincinnati chili.  Never heard of Cincinnati chili?  Neither had I until I came across the recipe in the local newspaper.  Sounded interesting.  Tried it, liked it, will probably have it again.  Anyway, the potluck was a success.

After work, me and the family went shopping.  We were getting some munchies for our little New Year’s celebration and some seafood for the Cajun boil we were having New Year’s day.  Well, we decided to avoid Walmart because, well, Walmart sucks.  On a normal day, Walmart sucks.  On New Year’s Eve day I imagine Walmart super-sucks, so we went to Family Thrift (which is a Nash Finch grocery store… and Nash Finch sucks too, but they usually have decent seafood.)

Anyway, so we go to Family Thrift and we suddenly realize that, as much as Walmart sucks, Walmart really does have the lowest prices.  Family Thrift just kind of sucks, but Family Thrift is sooo overpriced that it’s not even close to funny.  So, we’re walking around picking up crap that is like twice as expensive as it would be at Walmart when we get to the seafood counter.

Now, usually for the Cajun boil, we get shrimp and snow crab (along with the corn, sausage and potatos.)  It just so happens that Family Thrift is out of shrimp and snow crab.  So, we check out the king crab.

The lady working behind the counter says, “The king crab is on sale for $15.99 per pound.”  We really don’t want to spend $15.99 per pound for much of anything, so I happen to notice a little freezer with prepackaged crab in it.  “That’s king crab bits and pieces,” says the counter lady.

Now, I don’t know exactly what “bits and pieces” means, but I do know that the “bits and pieces” are about half the price of the stuff behind the counter.  For some reason, this difference in pricing makes me mad.  I know this sounds stupid, and it probably is, but the “bits and pieces” look about the same as the stuff behind the counter yet there is a drastic difference in price… and I smell some stupid marketing ploy… and stupid marketing ploys tick me off.

“Why would we pay twice as much for the non-bits-and-pieces stuff,” I practically yell at the wife.  Now, it’s not the wife’s fault by any stretch of the imagination, but I’m really yelling at the lady behind the counter indirectly by yelling at my wife directly… it’s a beta male thing and the wife, God bless her, is used to it and takes no offense.

Now, the point I’m making is that we’re gonna buy the bits and pieces because buying the $15.99 crap would be stupid.  The lady behind the counter seems to think I’m looking for a deal.

“I’ll tell you what,” the counter lady says, “I’ll let you have the king crab for $15.99 per pound, but that’s as low as I can go.”  She is dead serious.

The lady behind the counter seems to think I’m looking for a deal… and semi-retarded.  I don’t even bother looking at the counter lady.  I don’t want to know if she really thinks I’m stupid enough to fall for the fact that she is offering me a “deal” price that is the same as the sale price she quoted to me only moments earlier.  I don’t want to know if she is offended at the fact that I indirectly yelled at her by directly yelling at the wife.  I just want to pay for the overpriced crap we have in our cart and I want to go home.

So, we check out, get to the car, and start for home.  Now, the wife has this brilliant idea to pick up some McDonald’s for supper.  That’s right… New Year’s Eve and me and the family are having McDonald’s for supper.  You can’t live in Nebraska and not have at least a touch of trailer trash running through your veins.

“Alright,” I think to myself, “at least it will be quick.  Yep, a couple of minutes in the drive-thru and we’ll be on our way.”

We place our order, pay at the first window, and proceed to the second window to pick up our order.  A total of about 60 seconds have passed.  So, we’re sitting and waiting and excited to start our night of board games and snacking (yeah… we’re party animals.)  A couple of minutes go by and I’m starting to get a bit upset.  The adolescent people working on the other side of the sliding window won’t even make eye contact.  What’s taking so long.  This is “fast food,”  for crying out loud.  Finally, the zit-faced teenage girl who should be handing us our food opens the little sliding window and says, “Uh, your order isn’t, like, ready… so could you, like,  pull forward and we’ll, like, bring it to you or something?”

“Uh… ok,” I say.  How could some fast food be not ready?  Isn’t the purpose of fast food to be ready?  I pull forward and am getting pretty hot under the collar.

“How can it not be ready,” I yell at my wife.

“I don’t know,” she smiles.

“What the hell,” I yell.  “Do they need me to go in there and make it myself?”

“I don’t know,” she smiles.

We sit out there for almost 15 minutes.  Meanwhile, cars behind us are pulling up to that stupid window, getting their food, and driving around us.

“What in the hell are they ordering that is so much faster than our order,” I yell at the wife.

“I don’t know,” she smiles.

Finally, some skinny teenage boy comes rushing out the door of the restaurant with our order out in front of him.

“Here you are, Sir,” says the boy, his voice crackling and I can’t tell if it’s because he’s nervous or if it’s just because he’s a teenage boy.  “Sorry for the wait.”

By this point I can’t even look at the boy ’cause I’m so upset.  I’m afraid if I look at him I’m gonna start yelling at the wife again… and she’s had enough for one day.

“Uh… ok,” I say to the boy, take the food, and drive away.  I’m so ticked, I don’t say anything the whole way home.  When we finally get to the house, we head to the dining room to dig into our McDonald’s feast.

After getting my part of the order out in front of me, I ask, “Can someone pass some ketchup?”

“Looks like we didn’t get any ketchup,” says the wife.  “I’ll go to the kitchen and get some.”

I can feel my face turning red.  I am on the brink of really letting the wife have it when I think better of it.  It is, after all,  New Year’s Eve.  Instead of yelling or cursing, I begin to weep.  My salty tears fall silently on the fries in front of me and are every bit as good as ketchup… or so I tell myself.

That is how I spent my New Year’s Eve.  I have spent all time since then doing everything I possibly can to avoid contact with the outside world which seems hell-bent on driving me insane.

Happy New Year!

Happy Food Stamp Friday!

You all know what Food Stamp Friday is, don’t you? It’s the first Friday of the month after the government has started handing out all the free money to all the families who can’t quite make ends meet… well, free to the families who receive the money; not free to us taxpayers helping to support them. A good portion of these folks are seriously just a little down on their luck and, once back one their feet, they will start contributing to society again. Some of these people are physically or mentally disabled to the point that they will probably never be able to contribute to the capitalist machine in a manner that would allow them to earn a self-sustaining living. I, and I assume most compassionate Americans, have no problem assisting these people live more comfortable lives (there but for the grace of God…)

It’s not the above mentioned people that I have a problem with. The people I have a problem with are the people who  “believe” they are incapable of contributing to society because life has been too hard on them and they feel entitled to the free food that you and I are buying for them. Here’s a little wake-up call: life, in many instances, sucks. Life is often nothing more than a big pile of stinking crap. However, there is more than enough happy and joy to go around… so get off your lazy rear-ends and start contributing. Use the government programs for what they were meant to be… a stabilizing force that helps relieve the stress of starving to death while you improve your position in life.

In the past, there was a slight stigma associated with using food stamps. All of the people in line behind you saw you pull out the brightly colored coupons and knew that they had helped you buy your groceries. Now, if you are on food stamps, you get the fancy EBT card. EBT stands for Electronic Benefit Transfer. It reminds me of other little programs the government has… like taxes. You know, every paycheck there is that line where your employer has magically made some of your hard-earned money disappear and it magically appears in a government account. Well, part of that money magically appears as a credit on a little credit-card-like piece of plastic carried by food stampers. Magically out of your pocket and magically into the pocket of someone else… and now the government is going to be handing out free health care? Yeah, I ain’t even going to touch that viper…  So, now that the government is issuing little pieces of plastic that look like credit cards to steal from the middle class and give to the poor… and the needy… and the big, lazy trailer trash that has learned to milk the system (read: steal from you), how can you spot a food stamper?

Okay, so the way you can tell it’s Food Stamp Friday is to head on out to Walmart and see that it’s 5X busier than normal and you see husbands and wives, or sometimes just a guy and sometimes just a gal, and anywhere from 4 to 12 kids in varying age from newborn to about 16, and these groups of people are pushing anywhere from 2 to 5 grocery carts and taking up entire aisles for huge blocks of time while they decide which flavor of stinking Zinger they want. And, after anywhere from a 3 minute to a 10 minute wait behind these wonderfully colorful people, they decide that they just can’t decide and they get a box of each and every flavor of stinking Zingers… all on your and my tax dollar.   And if you look carefully in their carts, you will find a bounty of prepared foods and snack items.  Can’t these people buy something a little healthier?  Can’t they buy a little pasta and some rice cakes, for crying out loud?  Seriously, if the husband and wife are together on a Friday afternoon at Walmart with all seven kids in tow, you know ain’t none of them working, so you’d think one of them could take the time to prepare a healthy meal!?!  Most of the time, at least half of the members of these families look like they could stand to lose a pound or two…  or fifty.  But, with all the Ding Dongs and Doritos and Mrs. Fields cookies and Little Juan burritos sticking out of the 3 grocery carts they are pushing around… you got to figure weight loss ain’t a priority on their agendas.

Ahh… Food Stamp Friday!  Nothing like a trip to Walmart on Food Stamp Friday to make you appreciate having a liberal, socialistic President in office… except for maybe tomorrow.  After all, tomorrow is Food Stamp Saturday, and that’s when the fun really begins…

Stinking Walmart!

My wife was at Walmart earlier today getting a little of this and a little of that.  When she got home, she told me know Walmart has its summer stuff on clearance… and they have some back-to-school stuff out.  IT’S JUNE 30TH…JUNE IS NOT EVEN OVER… SCHOOL GOT OUT IN THIS AREA ABOUT ONE MONTH AGO!!!!????!!!! For crying out loud, Walmart has sooo changed the way we live life in this country… and not for the better.  It used to be that you could buy a swimsuit at the end of the summer, you know, in case you actually lost that weight you were planning on losing.  Not anymore.  By the middle of July, no stores will even be carrying swimsuits anymore and it’s all Walmart’s fault.

Ok, I don’t know if this is all really Walmart’s fault or not, but I have a pretty strong feeling that it is.  Walmart always gets rid of seasonal merchandise slightly after the season has begun.  Walmart also always brings out the next season’s merchandise freakishly early.  Does anyone really want to think about back-to-school when school just got out?  Does anyone really want to think about fall holidays (Halloween and Thanksgiving) before school even starts?  Does anyone really want to start planning for Christmas at the beginning of the school year?  I’m sure the answer to these questions for some people may be “yes”… but those people need to be tied up with Christmas lights in the middle of July and whipped senseless with jack-o-lanterns until they come around to my way of thinking.

Have you noticed how time seems to go faster than it did when you were a kid?  I used to think this was just part of the aging process; I don’t think this way anymore.  I think time seems to go faster than it used to because Walmart has back-to-school supplies out in their stinking stores before June is even over.  I think time seems to go faster than it used to because Walmart (and every other stinking store that has to follow Walmart’s stinking tactics in order to survive) forces consumers into thinking about the next major shopping season many weeks (often months) before that season arrives… all in the name of stinking profit!

So a big THANK YOU to you, stinking Walmart, for your contribution to the increasingly insane pace of life in the United States.  After all, who really wanted to slow down and try to enjoy summer anyway?  Thank you for forcing me to buy what I want and need when YOU want me to have it, not when I really want or need it.  Thank you for making me hate you more than I hate a pair of underwear that is too small and constantly rides up and constantly has to be pulled back down at the most awkward moments… and I really hate that.  And, finally, thank you for keeping your prices just slightly lower than your competition so that I feel like I would be throwing my money away by shopping somewhere besides Walmart!

Well, enough griping for now.  I think I’ll head out to Walmart.  I’m gonna need a new sled for next winter and there is a pretty good stinking chance Walmart has them on an end-display.  It is the last day of June, after all.