Stupid Customer-isms

My job, for the most part, is pretty unbareable. My manager sucks - she rarely works on the floor with us, she's late almost every day, she never has the schedule done on time, and she's constantly taking credit for all the good work done by our assistant deli manager - and the customers are hella annoying. My coworkers are fun, though, and to help each other get through the days we've started compiling a list of the funny, stupid, or just plain ridiculous things our customers say to us everyday. I'm sure I'll be adding to this, as the never-ending weeks go by:

"Can I get a vegetarian sub with turkey?"

"This ham says that it costs $8.99 a pound, but I don't need that much. Can I just get half a pound?"

Coworker: "How would you like your meat sliced?"
Customer: "On a slicer."

Customer: "Do you have any ketchup?"
Coworker: "Ma'am, there's some on the shelf there."
Customer: "That's all Heinz ketchup. Don't you have another brand?"
Coworker: "No."
Customer: "Well, I can't use that one. I don't support him."
Coworker: "Who?"
Customer: "John Kerry."

Customer: "My husband wants a turkey for dinner tonight, but I don't feel like cooking. Can I just buy one of your turkeys?"
Me: "You might be better off buying a turkey in our meat department. The turkeys we have here are for slicing, and we would have to sell it to you by the pound, which would be pretty expensive. But the meat department has pre-cooked turkeys that you can just heat up in the oven."
Customer: "Ok, I'll go check over there."
*a few minutes later, as I'm walking through the store, I see the same customer*
Me: "Did you find what you were looking for?"
Customer: [holds up a jar of peanut butter] "Yes, thank you."

More to come...

The "Automatic" Car

It's a rainy day in Georgia, and I'm sitting in my trusty neighborhood coffee shop. Well, I live in the middle of nowhere, so technically it's more of a countyhood coffee shop, but whatev. I saw a commercial last night for a new car (Mercedes? I don't pay attention to brands) that parallel parks itself! This is pretty exciting, no? Think of the possibilities...

Code Monkey recently had an opportunity to enable the GPS chip on his phone and use it for a free trial period. This actually came in handy, because we live roughly 3 hours from each other and usually end up meeting halfway, in a city that neither of us knows very well. The three places we can get to with absolutely no problem: the mall, one of the four movie theaters in the area, and a kick-ass Indian restaurant (YUM!) During our last rendezvous, we decided to see a movie but didn't like the choices at the first movie theater. So he pulled out his phone, got show times for other theaters, picked which one we wanted to see (Man of the Year, which: eh), got directions using the GPS navigation, and then his phone TALKED US TO THE LOCATION. It was beyond cool. Every time we came to an intersection, the phone (which is apparently female) would tell us which way to turn, and even how far we were from our destination. Pretty sweet.

So, if cars can park themselves for us, and we have GPS that navigates us to where ever we need to go, I'm thinking pretty soon we won't even need to drive cars anymore. Pop some sensors in those babies (so they know when they're getting too close to another vehicle, thus avoiding accidents) and I'll be more than content to let them cart me around.

Of course, we could also invest that money and research into more alternative fuel sources and public transportation, and that would be even better, but I'm doubting that'll happen before the self-driving car.

Next stop: getting those suckers to fly!

First Things First

Welcome to Casual Dread, my newest blog. I used to have a livejournal, but I met too many people and discovered friends who also had one. Once the anonymity was lost, I felt like I couldn't write what I really wanted for fear of being judged or offending someone. The title comes from my favorite Jennifer Nettles song:

Casual Dread

So I'm moving out of nothing town,
this spirit's restless inside of me.
I'm tired of working in my family's grocery.
They say there's much I've yet to see.
See my mother had the soul of a story teller.
And she passed those demons down to her daughter's head.

And it's sir I will and sir I would --
put me down for some of that casual dread.

Driving at the back of this truck for what seems like hours.
Feel I know the driver like the back of my hand.
'Cause I been making up stories of his life,
like right now what he's saying to his wife.
And his stickers say he supports the navy
and thinks love is grand.
Well I do too.
So, thoughts of you break his story to remind me of the last time you were in my bed.

And it was sir I will and sir I would --
put me down for some of that casual dread.

And oh, you're invited to the table.
Yes, your choice tonight is famine or feast.
Well step on up to the table.
You see the wine it might be bitter,
but the sacrament's still sweet.
I've been thinking about my lives and where they've brought me.
So I asked a teacher for some living bread,
and he said, "Child the best lesson you could ever swallow,
is that this life is the one that's living,
all the other ones are dead."

Well, I've never seen a gravestone of mine,
but I hope each life was defined by an epitaph that read,
"She was sir I will and sir I would -- put her down for more of that casual dread."
I'd like a little more of that.
Some glad morning when this life is o'er.

My life right now is pretty random. I filed for bankruptcy last year, quit my crappy retail job, and moved back in with my parents. I was hoping to get a job as a teacher, but it's more difficult than I thought. My current "temporary" job is slicing meat in the Deli department of a regional grocery chain, and I hate it. Mostly because I'm a vegetarian, but also because my manager kida sucks and the uppity rich customers are pretty annoying.

More about me: I love to read (Jane Austen, Chuck Palahniuk, Neil Gaiman, Nick Hornby, Douglas Adams), play video games (my boyfriend just bought me FFVII, so there goes my free time), and sew and crochet. I'm a Girl Scout leader and I spend WAY too much time online. My new tv boyfriend is Hiro Nakamura, and I'm sorta obsessed with Veronica Mars.
Feel free to comment about anything I post on here. I love discussing/arguing with complete strangers - it reminds me of being drunk and chatty at college keggers.