That is not to say I haven't been to WalMart, I was just there on Sunday buying Christmas presents, and it is in part because of that trip that I have to make this one.
I guess I can let the cat out of the bag now, it is post Christmas and I no longer need to keep my mouth shut about presents that have already arrived at their destination. I made the trip to WalMart at The Waterworks (always with the water themed malls) because I had a plan to go and pick up at least one of those "together" presents for my mom and her husband, a 40" flat screen TV. My hope was I could pay for it in the store and have them send the order to a closer store, who in turn could deliver it. By checking online the night before I saw that they could get things to their destination before Christmas, so I figured I would get the big item, then spend my time there and in a couple other stores out that way and buy smaller gifts.
So I am walking around the electronics department and I see the TV I want, so I explain to one of the associates what I wanted to do and was told it couldn't be done, in order for me to get delivery I would have to go online and make my purchase. While I could have bought the TV and taken it with me, one of the disadvantages to riding public transit is no trunk space. And trust me when I say I had no desire to try to navigate getting a large TV on a city bus. Square peg meet round hole and all that jazz.
Since I had my Christmas money with me (I am still old school in rather using cash than a credit or debit card), instead of buying the TV there I got a gift card for the amount of the TV (and then some) and went home and used the gift card to buy the TV online just so it could be delivered.
Now buy it online wasn't all bad, I did get to use the Swagbucks portal into WalMart.com, thereby securing myself 3 swagbucks for every dollar spent. All in all I probably got enough in the transaction to get 2 more $5 Amazon gift cards.
How does that relate to this scenario you may ask? Or you may not, who knows, but now I have a gift card with extra money on it and an apartment that is in need of groceries. By making this trek to my old place of employment I will end up at one of the Supercenters, as opposed to the one I was shopping at Sunday which was just a regular old WalMart, and from there I will get food stuffs, rather than going to a grocery store and spending greenbacks.
The problem with this trip is it will take two buses to and fro, with layovers inbetween both buses, kind of like the airport, but the airport is probably faster. By the time I get to my destination I probably could have flown to Chicago.
I didn't stay at work as long as I could have today, after doing a 12 hour day on Christmas (at time and a half of course) my need for extra hours isn't all that great. Plus I just saw the new schedule Friday and Ed has me on a register shift on New Years Day too, another long day for me, but again at the time and a half rate. Plus I pick up at least one additional vacation day for working each of them, so it is almost like 2.5x the pay, just some if it is deferred.
Well my bus finally arrived, only 40 minutes late. I am already screwed on my first transfer of buses, so we will see how long I have to wait now between them. My original plan, had the Port Authority held up its end of the bargain, would have had me leaving downtown and giving me 50 minutes to get to my transfer point. The first bus eating up 40 of those minutes means I now know what it feels like to be fucked with a Ron Jeremy sized penis. Not a snowballs chance this bus gets there in 10 minutes, hell, you would be hard pressed to do it with a car and a straight line route, so it will not happen here.
I will give the bus driver this, she is trying to make up for lost time, but barring a Star Trek like rift in the space time continuum it just isn't going to happen. More likely you will find that I will be on the news as a dead passenger after my bus rolls down an embankment or some such nonsense.
While I worked on Christmas Day, when I got home I did check out my feed on Facebook to see the photos of my friends and contacts. Also I was looking for something, I wasn't expecting to find it but I was looking nonetheless. I was checking to see if there were any pictures of birthday cakes. Of course there wasn't every one of those sorry ass motherfuckers who were bitching about the alleged War on Christmas couldn't be bothered to bake a cake for their savior again this year. Next year why don't all of you ass clowns just shut the hell up.
Must say I am impressed, this bus is pushing that space time thing pretty hard, 14 minutes in and I see the lights of my destination down over the hillside and across the river, Not too shabby. Doesn't mean I will hit my connecting bus, probably just means I will have to stand around even longer for the next one.
I am now on the bridge above The Waterfront, my connection is at 6:50, it's currently 6:47. If my other bus is running late this may work, though being on the bridge and actually getting into the shopping center with this post holiday traffic, as well as movie going peoples isn't the same as actually being there.
So, did everyone like the publicity stunt for "The Interview"? You know, the one where they say that there are threats against the theaters who will show it, so for a minute there the release was delayed, only to be undelayed as well. Nice gimmick to get people to go see a movie, not because it is good, or funny (honestly the trailers looked dreadful, but what do I know), but because it is now their patriotic duty to do so. Hell, even the President chimed in on the issue and the amount of free publicity the movie got was better than any money they could have spent promoting that film. And sure enough, like lemmings (you can find some right here), people went out to see it, simply because they were going to stick it to big bad North Korea. You know North Korea right, the nation where they are still rubbing sticks together to make fire. That's the big bad ominous threat.
Photo: The Korean peninsula from space (NASA)
Yikes, I might be coming off a tad venomous there, though that might be the best non selfish paragraph I have written in months.
It looks like I was right, the bus connection was missed, so I get to stand here probably another 30 minutes or so, and put the whole time table off by a good hour. Luckily the last bus leaving WalMart is at 10 pm, and I am not in a rush to get anywhere. As long as I catch that one, if not an earlier one, I am good. I am in no hurry to be anywhere, my only issue whether or not the iPad battery runs out on me. It is hanging in there at 79% right now. If it dies run out I always have a book to read in my bag.
I have a bad habit, sometimes when I am standing around I will listen in on other people's conversations. I can't say anything of value ever comes out of the information I collect, in that regard I guess my eavesdropping is like an off the grid Sony hack, but just by standing here waiting for the bus I learned that "Target has got them bitches". Which bitches I do not know, nor do I know what qualifies them as bitches, perhaps Target is trying to cut into Petland's sales and are now selling female dogs, perhaps they hired my last girlfriend, I have no idea but this information is not something that requires any sort of follow up on my part. I just know that if ever I am in the need of bitches apparently Target is the place to go.
I am well aware that I did not blog yesterday, though I did get my hockey videos caught up (that should count for something at least) but yesterday I just didn't have a long jibberish like blog bottled up inside me like I apparently do now. The best you could have hoped for last night would have been me talking about my fantasy sports teams again, and I think we all needed a night off from that.
Well we are closing in on the time the next bus to WalMart will arrive, and I guess part of the reason I want to go to this particular location is that I used to work there and I am curious how many of the faces I will recognize. I am certain I will not remember their names, it wasn't a job where I did any socialization outside of work, nor did I meet any acquaintances that I formed long lasting friendships with. That doesn't mean I disliked the people I worked with, just that they were simply coworkers and nothing more.
I will say I do not miss working in retail this time of year. Now is the time when every ungrateful little prick is trying to return Christmas gifts they got because their present wasn't good enough this year. I hate those fucking people with a passion. In my entire life on this planet, 45+ years now, I can honestly say I only ever returned one gift, and that wasn't even a return. Rather what happened was my mom got me a digital camera back in the day, and when I opened the box the camera wasn't in it. Apparently my mom had bought the one they used as the show model, so they sold her an empty box. Yes, it happened at WalMart in case you were guessing, but they realized their mistake and actually had the camera put away for me, waiting for our return. When we got there not only did I get the camera but they threw in a free camera bag as well for our trouble. Come to think of it, that wasn't a gift return at all, was it?
Okay, on the second bus and again the driver is trying that space time thing, though this bus wasn't late to begin with. Methinks the driver is just trying to get home as fast as possible. Aren't we all though?
I really shouldn't be singling out one retailer though, this time of year I am sure it sucks to work in most any of them, and having been offered jobs at more than one in the past I can say it isn't like one pays an huge amount more than the other. In fact of the three places in retail that offered me jobs back in my radio days (KMart and Target were the others), WalMart (at least the one I worked at) paid better than both of them. But people always cheer for the underdog, so WalMart will take the brunt of criticism for underpaid employees, even if their wage is pretty much the norm in that field.
Well the bus ride has now gone through the town of Braddock, or as the sign says "Welcome to Majestic Braddock". If boarded up businesses and pawn shops qualifies as majestic, then my apartment is a palace. You could plunk down Braddock in North Korea and it would probably fit right in. I am sure this is where some of my Pittsburgh friends will chime in about the hip mayor of Braddock and how things are changing and money is being invested, blah blah freaking blah. Here is a little hip reply to that #eyeballtest.
So I escaped WalMart, spent about $40 on the gift card so I still have some dinero left on it, probably another $40 or so and now I am just standing here waiting for the bus to take me back to The Waterfront where I can change over buses and hopefully make it home around 11pm or so. Just standing here checking out the scenery and the things that have changed since I worked here, like the fact that the abandoned Popeye's restaurant across the street is now a Mexican place, El Patron. Apparently someone did not press 1 for English when they named the place. Que sera, sera.
Didn't recognize anyone who was working either, though I will say my cashier was gorgeous in a hidden kind of way. You know how they do it in the movies, the sexy scientist is supposed to look all plain and stuff in her lab coat and glasses but you can just see the relative hotness, that was her but in a smock and standard cashier attire. Long, straight brown hair, impeccable curves, great smile. It almost called for the requisite, what is a girl like you doing in a place like line.
Okay, we or at least I am back on the bus. Of course I ended up catching the last bus at 10pm so chances are I will not get in until well after 11pm. Worse I think the bus driver has the air conditioner on. Not sure why, it isn't exactly warm outside.
Sadly I have to report that I am once again back on the grid from a cell phone perspective. My brief hiatus of being rid of my electronic dog collar was much to brief for my tastes, because my phone died on Christmas Eve and by the morning of the 26th I had a new phone in my hands. Those damn Verizon people being all competent and shit messed with what was a pretty good thing I had going, that being not having my cell ring for all kinds of work related nonsense.
Wait, I think I feel warm air coming from the blowers. That is nice. Better than the conversation taking place behind me, where some girl is fighting with her ex boyfriend on her cell phone. It is lots of fuck this and fuck that, which fits right in with my blog this evening. Of course the difference being that no matter how bad that conversation is going at the end of the day I get the sense she will end up sleeping with him, getting pregnant and having a kid while he will just disappear. Trust me, I will not get this blog pregnant. Honestly, I don't even find my blog slightly sexually attractive. We are just friends.
I did get myself a couple of Christmas presents while at the store, a new comic book t shirt and some cargo shorts because nothing screams winter like me running around in shorts. I also got one of those plastic candy canes filled with Rolos, which I am current popping like, well, candy. Hey, when your nourishment for the day consists of a bagel with cream cheese and a jalapeño hot dog then Rolos would constitute dessert on that menu.
I should get bonus points for typing right now, the bus driver is literally hitting every pothole he possibly can, it is taking cirque de sole type dexterity just to bang out a sentence or three. He did slow down for a minute, only because there was a police car stopped in front of him. The officer was crossing the street to assist in an arrest in Majestic Braddock.
Well, the girl who was arguing with her boyfriend just got off the bus. Things are a bit more peaceful now. It's a post Christmas miracle.
The battery on the iPad is down to 61% now, so either I am typing a lot or playing a lot of Candy Crush, or both.
Thank god that's over, only one bus to go. You know how sometimes you will shake a ketchup bottle, usually in and up and down motion, in order to get the last of the potential ketchup from it? I swear the bus driver was trying to do that to my bladder, between the hot and cold temps from the blower ( it went back to cold after I bragged about warm), hitting literally dozens of potholes and running the bus up onto at least two different curbs, I am surprised I didn't piss myself with the jostling my bladder just took.
Thankfully there is only one bus to go, though it is already 11pm. Even if he showed up right now I would be lucky to get home at 11:30 as the bus route from here home involves more traffic lights and stoppages than the ride from here to downtown.
While I wait for my last bus I guess I should take some time to address a video I saw the other day on Facebook. It was titled "The World's Biggest Booger" and while I can not testify to the authenticity of said snot footage, I will nonetheless describe what I saw. It was a man who looked to be in some type of medical setting, perhaps a doctor's office and another person wearing what appeared to be surgical gloves and using something that resembled tweezers. The doctor (admittedly an assumption on my part, it could have been anyone really) was poking around in the man's nostril until latching onto what appears to be a giant piece of snot which is then pulled out. The man who now no longer has a nostril full of booger talks about how much better he feels, like some giant pressure was relived on half of his face. Excuse me for being blunt, but had he ever tried just blowing his nose? I would say that normally works for 99% of the human population. If that didn't work, what about picking his nose. Not in a social setting mind you, I am not saying the man should have been knuckle deep in his nostril at the dinner table, but the removal of snot is, by and large, not a medical procedure and more along the lines of a do-it-yourself project and if the accumulation of snot was so great that it was actually causing pain then perhaps some quiet time alone digging out the large mass may have been called for. Certainly it would have been more called for than wasting the valuable time of a health care professional and then posting said video online.
See, I know how to kill time with a good story, my last bus has arrived and with it I think I am going to call it a night for this particular entry. I would type more but when I get home I still have some pee that has been bounced around that needs taken care of. I know, just how you wanted me to close a blog entry, with piss and snot. Could be worse though. Could be zits and gnorrorea.
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