What's up with bad service lately?

My sister sent me a coupon code for free Safeway grocery delivery. Since grocery shopping always seems to be a HUGE ASS chore in our household, one that is often left for me to do in the wee hours of Tuesday morning (which I kinda like because there are no otheres around, and those that are are weird and fun to think stories up about, like the Foodmaxx cashier I call "crackhead" cause she acts like she's hopped up on something), I was keen to get my groceries delivered to my door.

I've made a new rule about not shopping at Safeway because I was walking out with a receipt totalling $120 bucks on average, but I tend to do a lot better when shopping online. There aren't really any impulse buys or creative meal plans I can come up with when I actually have to search for things or shop aisles by clicking "next" over and over. Food loses its thrill.

I managed to only spend roughly 70 bucks, which is the best I've done in a long time, with a small extra list of things to purchase at Foodmaxx because I knew I could get them cheaper there. AND I bought chicken breasts and pork tenderloin. How good is that? Amazing!

The delivery guy came and went. I was in my PJs and looking bag ladyish, so my husband dealt with him. Then I was let loose from my hovel (bedroom) to put the groceries away. After I was done, I looked at the receipt again.

Two things were missing:

• pork tenderloin that was supposed to cost way cheaper, but was listed at $12 something, and
• a lemon.

The lemon was expensive too for some reason.

So I had to send Safeway an e-mail telling them the delivery guy ran off with my pork and lemon and I wanted my money back. Even though not getting the items delivered is annoying, at least this Service Rep (or CR, as I've been calling them, or "Joel" as he's called himself) didn't respond to me with an idiotic, misspelled e-mail, although it was completely canned. How do I know? Because he used the word "assure" correctly, something most uncanned e-mail writers hardly get correct.

This morning I went to Foodmaxx to pick up the items from my small list I mentioned above. I walked out with about 7 bags of food items and spending almost 50 bucks. In my defense, most of the food items are for Mateo. Although I, myself, do enjoy a mean Ritz Bitz Cheese Cracker sandwich thing on occasion.

9 Reasons why I love my local Hallmark.

I went to the Hallmark store today to buy some cards. I'm trying to make sure I break no hearts this coming mom and dad days, and that I actually give my husband an anniversary card since I sorta, kinda forgot Valentine's Day this year. While there, I realized I just loath love the Hallmark store.

Here are my reasons, in no particular order:

• Old people! Omg! How the old people flock to the Hallmark store. Don't they tend to go out earlier in the day? Because those times I've gone grocery shopping around 9 or 10 am on a weekday, there are nothing but old people slowly walking the aisles, getting in the way of shopping carts and asking me to read things for them.
• Geeky teenage boys who for some reason decide to apply to work at a Hallmark store even though they know nothing about cards and trinkets and "collectibles" (term is used very loosely). They are quiet, shy, awkward and don't make eye contact. I suspect his mom got him the job.
• Gold Crown stickers. Why do the cashiers have to ask each person buying cards if they want some? Just give the stupid stickers away. This ties into the old people reason - the cashier asks, "do you want a gold crown sticker?" The old persons says, "What???????????????" The cashier repeats the question and adds, "you put it on the back of the envelope - to seal it." "What?????????????????" This can go on one more time or a few more times, or until the cashier gives up and just gives them the gosh darn sticker.
• Weird old woman who I swear must be a witch because she walked in with half her long, ratty hair tied up to the side of her head with the other part of her hair drooping in foam rollers. The cash register area was a bit clogged up, so she walked 50 mph up behind one of the many old people milling around and said "EXCUSE ME!" and then kept on her way when the old lady moved. When she came back, a patchwork teddy bear caught her eye, she picked it up, probably put a curse on it, put it back and left the store, foam rollers bouncing as she went. Witch or art teacher. You pick.
• Woman with massive purse who had her mind set on looking at the Mother's Day cards right behind me. I moved up a bit to give her room, but instead of reciprocating this nicety, she whacked me in the back, not once, but twice with her stupid gigantic bag. When I turned around to give her the evil eye (I had already been waiting to pay for about 5 minutes and figured I had another 5 minutes of waiting, so my good humor was slowly fading), she didn't acknowledge my existence. I did not exist! I was invisible. However, I was ready to throw some heated words with her, and who was going to stop me? The geeky cashier or the old people?
• The Hallmark collectibles that the old people come in to buy. For some reason, the really "high end" collectibles are taken out of their box and displayed. So if an old person wants to buy it, they have to bring it up to the counter and then wait for the geeky cashier to go upstairs, find the collectible's box, bring it down and repack it. This. makes. no. sense. Just buy two of the stupid things for stock and one for display. Don't sell the display one!!
• Picky collectible buying old lady who is freaked out that there is no bubble wrap around her collectible, which then causes geeky cashier to go BACK upstairs to cut off a chunk of bubble wrap and then come back DOWNSTAIRS to wrap up said collectible. When he put some extra collectible trinket thing in the box, she freaked out because the little thing didn't have a box. And she was taking all the lovely collectibles ON THE PLANE, for gosh darn sake, so make sure those puppies don't break! Like there aren't a bazillion Hallmark stores in every state.
• Old lady who has to find the change to give to the cashier so that she could get even change back. So another 2 minutes of every one's time is lost while the old lady searches and searches for her change, which she can't really see as it is. And then, when the cashier gives her 40 cents back (even!), she drops a dime. So I picked it up and try to hand it to her, but she has no clue that I'm even there, and the cashier is trying to grab the dime from me, like I'm going to drop the dime and grab her other 30 cents she got back and run into the night.
• Cashier who tells me she's stressed out, and when I say it'll get better, she tells me she was off a long time ago, but there is a long line (old people...), so she's stayed, but she's got to get all the way across town by some certain time, and blah blah blah. My transaction was finished really fast -- "do you want Gold Crown stickers?" "No." "Can I see your ID?" Flipped out and displayed lickety split-like." "Sign here." Signed. So when we were finished, I told her, "Hey, at least I was FAST." Ha, ha, guffaws, etc..

And these are the many reasons why I will try Target first when I need cards.

Walmart

I'm starting to dislike Walmart. And no, not for all the reasons most people do - I happen to love saving some money on things, so if people are unfortunate enough to make the decision to apply for a job at Walmart, then I simply can't feel sorry for them if they aren't being paid well or getting good health care. But that's a whole thing in and of itself.

This is why I'm starting to dislike Walmart:

More often than not, when I get home and unpack my bags full of Walmart goodies, it'll dawn on me that something is missing. Not only has this happened to me, but it's happened to my husband as well, and he's one of those people who hates Walmart for the humanitarian / bad business ethics reasons, so you can imagine how that goes when he realizes something is missing from his purchases. This is the man who gets mad at inanimate objects for falling when he touches him. It doesn't go over so well.

I went yesterday and bought a bunch of stuff, one item in particular for Mateo because he's just starting to get used to eating solid foods vs. pureed slop: Sweet Potato Puffs. YUM!

He's already tried the fruity puffs and likes those, so I thought it would be good to get a veggie one.

For a few different reasons, I didn't completely unpack all the bags when I got home, and it wasn't until 2:30ish that I finished unpacking and realized his puffs were missing. Maybe I already put them away and just forgot, I thought. I checked, couldn't find them. Maybe they rolled out of the bag in the car, I thought. When I left to go pick him up from daycare, I checked, couldn't find them.

Grrrrrrr....Darn Walmart. Got me again.

Now the thing I don't get it this: In my case, the lady must have put the single container of puffs in its own bag, which makes no sense because 1. it's as light as a cotton ball (hello - they're PUFFS) and 2. they're in a container where they can't easily be crushed. But I'm assuming that's what she did, and since they use that crazy spinner bag thing, and each cashier does their own thing (in this case, she handed me some bags and pointed to others - apparently I missed the bag with a single container of light as cotton ball PUFFS. I just incorrectly assume I'm getting all my items.

And what about the little 80-year old Filipino lady who comes up to my waist that stops customers as they exit? Why didn't she, as she glanced quickly at my receipt and never once at my bags, and then swipe a green pen line on my receipt, tell me that I'm missing an item? If these ancient door checkers are there to eliminate theft, then how come they can't also take inventory of what's in my bags and compare to my receipt for me? They're stopping me as it is, even though they have no legal right to, and if I was a crazed thief, I could easily push her down and the other guy who stands around forcing shopping carts and umbrella bags on people, and run out the doors, screaming like a wild animal all the while. But yes, they are stopping me. So do me a favor and ensure I've received all the items I just paid for. I know, like that will ever happen.

So maybe it's a ploy of Walmart's and part of their training program. If one cashier "forgets" to bag an item or "forgets" to give a bag to a customer, just imagine the savings for them. I'm sure the item gets restocked and repurchased by someone else. From our past experiences of calling immediately after arriving home (five minute trip home) and realizing something was missing, they really don't seem to care. When I worked retail, I remember feeling like a horrible cashier when I forgot to give someone something, so much so that I would make a real attempt to chase them down and give them their bag or item. And if that was impossible, I would tell others and the manager on duty, so if that person called about it, others would know. And I wasn't being paid the greatest nor was I receiving wonderful health care, if any.

So I'll just add that to the evil doings of Walmart. But I'll still shop there cause I like saving money. And maybe next time I will keep walking out the door and ignore the small security people.

Shopping

How is it that I married a man who takes longer to make a decision on his sock purchase than the average person does for a car purchase?

Why does Kohls not provide chairs for people to sit in?

How is it that at the time of choosing, $12 for a footed onesie outfit that looks like a baseball uniform and says "Heartbreaker" across it like a baseball team's name seemed like an okay purchase because I was getting 15% off of the $12 price, but when I walked outside and was looking at the receipt, I was in complete shock that either one of us were okay with spending that much money for one item when we were in the baby department? I mean, I must be losing it because I really didn't remember the price or that I was fine with it, and then when we were outside I was rather annoyed with the whole purchase. Of course, my husband, who knew I was getting perturbed by the length of time it was taking him to pick out socks, kept saying, "you said you wanted it!" so I wouldn't blame it on him. I'm sure I did. But I've got massive baby brain and can't remember much of anything anymore.

Xmas shopping

Our last xmas shopping trip was to Kohls yesterday, and it mysteriously turned into a fancy pants clothes shopping trip for my husband. Did I know of this plan? No. It was a sneak attack. He all of a sudden needed new dress pants, belt and shirt for our office's xmas party (oh, excuse me, Year End Event), that I probably won't even be going to because I can't really get dressed up right now unless I can turn a garbage bag into something spectacular to wear and tissue boxes into shoes.

So there I was, huge and uncomfortable and suddenly very tired, following my husband around the Kohls men's department while he shopped. Kohls doesn't believe in giving the old, tired, wounded or pregnant people chairs to sit in, so I had to lean against displays while mentally telling my husband to hurry up. A lady gave me some sympathy, which I greatly appreciated, and then we were off to the dressing rooms for him to try on his fancy clothes.

At some point I just gave up and went into the dressing room with him so I could sit down. Which actually turns out to work better for us because I can comment on his clothing choices as he puts stuff on instead of waiting for minutes and minutes until he comes out to show me.

I'm still wondering who he's getting all fancy pants dressed up for since I'll probably be at home.