A Day in the Life

My phone card needed replacing. I have straight talk, which we like, mostly because we have the option of discontinuing it if we become dissatisfied with it. I buy the $35 card which gives me unlimited data, minutes, and texts. 

Since I was going to make a trip out, I made a note to get toilet paper. Since I'm a person who lives life on the edge, I had waited until I hung the second to the last roll before buying a new 12 pack. Tim was starting to get a little anxious...here we are being warned about the second wave, before he'd recuperated fully from the stress of the great TP shortage of the first wave.

I've also been watching the prices on two particular small appliances that will be Christmas gifts, so I figured to check those while I was out. Added those to my list. 

While I was getting ready to go out, I managed to break a stud earring. That hasn't happened before. Usually I lose them long before they wear out. This was an old one though, the original stud used to pierce my helix (sounds very shocking, but it is not) back when Cara and I had an adventure long ago while she was still in high school. Now she's in her 30s, married, and a world away. I made my mind up to replace the earring as well and jotted another helpful little reminder to myself 

Considering my list, I narrowed my trip down to just two stores and headed out. 

The first store was a bust. What I wanted wasn't on sale. They didn't have anything else that I remembered from that list conveniently left on the kitchen table. 

The second store, I got my monthly phone card, was delighted to see one of the items on my Christmas list on sale at a very nice price, headed over to get toilet paper, stopped to grab a dessert for supper, (William's favorite. They were coming over to eat the spicy black bean soup and to do some pumpkin carving). I picked up my toilet paper (no shortage, but I was surprised to see that the prices had gone up quite a bit since my last purchase.) I headed to the jewelry counter for my last stop. 

I picked out a pair of studs and waited. When no one came, I asked an employee passing by. She said they'd page for assistance. I went back to the jewelry counter and waited with my cart. 

I was surprised to see that the employee who arrived was an old coworker. She was not someone I knew well. I was always a bit put off by her dramatics. She exaggerates situations horribly and she angers very easily. She is perpetually disgusted by everyone around her. We weren't friends, really, but we greeted each other at work. 

She wanted to know why I left. (A rumor had gone round that I had cancer again).  I said told her that I'd volunteered for lay-off, but that I hadn't realized it would be permanent. But I allowed that I was happy enough with the way it turned out. I asked her when she left, and she explained that she'd left the job after the new owners of company stated that they'd only be working through the Christmas peak and then they were closing up shop. 

That announcement had never been made.

She bitterly began to go on with all sorts of 'inside information' about the company and its incipient demise, and I saw how it was going to go. I began to make noises about how good it was to see her again and make motions to head off with my cart.  She handed me my earrings before saying, "Oh, I can't do that! I need to walk them to the register with you." 

Understandable. 

So I picked my lane. I set my phone card on the conveyor, the small appliance, the dessert, and my toilet paper. She handed the earrings across the conveyor to the cashier. 

The cashier rang me up and she was a talker too. Never one to let a conversation go one sided, I efficiently picked up my end of it as she  quickly rang up my things. I thought the total was low, but aware of the person waiting 6 feet behind me, I used my card as the cashier loaded my cart. 

When she handed me my receipt, I scanned it quickly. I said, "You didn't charge me for the earrings." She said, "What earrings?" I said, "The earrings that Carrie brought up to you," and she looked embarrassed. They were sitting there on her register.

So she rang up my earrings and I paid for them by running my card yet again. I had just finished when the woman behind me spoke up. "This isn't my toilet paper."

 I stopped and looked back. Sure enough.  "Yeah...that toilet paper's mine." 

The cashier looked embarrassed once again.

While I was running my card yet again, I did a mental inventory. I had five items to pay for and I now had them all. 

I put my earrings in my pocket, and the toilet paper in the cart along with everything else and headed out the door. 

I got home and put the finishing touches on the soup in the crockpot. I put my stuff away. I sat down to check the computer. 

Bush Babe had one of those jokey little memes: Your last name, followed by the year, followed by the last thing you said." It made me laugh when I linked it all together. My motto? "-------, 2020: 'Yeah, that toilet paper's mine.' 

Strangely fitting, isn't it?