hobbit
05-24-2008, 01:54 PM
A simple run into town to drop off a used appliance to someone,
and then back out.
.
For the record, I hate left-lane on-ramps. They place me far
from home in the right lane, and getting there is a path fraught
with peril. I could come outa that chute doing 80 and they
*still* wouldn't let me move over, so maybe the right thing
is to keep to my modest 60-ish and maybe give them a good
*reason* to open a hole so lane protocol can be re-established.
.
The guy in a Blazer with the huge couch strapped to the roof
perhaps should have been doing 50 in the right lane, not the
second one... *he* was definitely a bit of a roadblock around
some of the interchanges, while I just hung back and watched.
.
A lady was ahead of me in the grocery store line later. In
the non-express checkout, buying nothing except ONE pack of
cigarettes. With her kid in tow. Paying with a mastercard,
apparently with a bad mag-stripe because it wouldn't read.
The cashier had to call over about three different managers,
one of which had to walk the pack back over to the locked
cig rack to swap it for a pack of "lites" as well, and it
took easily over five minutes to get all this straightened
out. At one point she sort of looked over and half-smiled
in an apologetic way, and they finally banged in the right
override code and got her cleared out. My little clutch of
picnic supplies took all of 60 seconds from start to finish.
I wish they'd bring back the "cash only" line.
.
The thing I really wanted to ask her right then was, "hey, if
someone was in front of you on the highway doing 55 in a 55,
how would you feel about that and what would you want to do?"
... not in an antagonistic way, just a random question. But I
didn't. The meta-question of "what do you really think your
time is worth" was going off like a fire alarm in my head, but I
repressed it. Besides, when I got out to the lot I saw her
loading her bratling into a Chrysler 300 gangsta-cruzr, after
which she went a-tearin' out of there. I guess I got my answer.
.
We have *such* twisted priorities.
.
_H*
and then back out.
.
For the record, I hate left-lane on-ramps. They place me far
from home in the right lane, and getting there is a path fraught
with peril. I could come outa that chute doing 80 and they
*still* wouldn't let me move over, so maybe the right thing
is to keep to my modest 60-ish and maybe give them a good
*reason* to open a hole so lane protocol can be re-established.
.
The guy in a Blazer with the huge couch strapped to the roof
perhaps should have been doing 50 in the right lane, not the
second one... *he* was definitely a bit of a roadblock around
some of the interchanges, while I just hung back and watched.
.
A lady was ahead of me in the grocery store line later. In
the non-express checkout, buying nothing except ONE pack of
cigarettes. With her kid in tow. Paying with a mastercard,
apparently with a bad mag-stripe because it wouldn't read.
The cashier had to call over about three different managers,
one of which had to walk the pack back over to the locked
cig rack to swap it for a pack of "lites" as well, and it
took easily over five minutes to get all this straightened
out. At one point she sort of looked over and half-smiled
in an apologetic way, and they finally banged in the right
override code and got her cleared out. My little clutch of
picnic supplies took all of 60 seconds from start to finish.
I wish they'd bring back the "cash only" line.
.
The thing I really wanted to ask her right then was, "hey, if
someone was in front of you on the highway doing 55 in a 55,
how would you feel about that and what would you want to do?"
... not in an antagonistic way, just a random question. But I
didn't. The meta-question of "what do you really think your
time is worth" was going off like a fire alarm in my head, but I
repressed it. Besides, when I got out to the lot I saw her
loading her bratling into a Chrysler 300 gangsta-cruzr, after
which she went a-tearin' out of there. I guess I got my answer.
.
We have *such* twisted priorities.
.
_H*