I Will Never Shop At Meijer Ever Again In My Whole Entire Life

Yes, it's really that serious. Allow me to explain. On December 21st I worked for 12 hours. When I got out of work Shaun and I went to Meijer to pick up all of the groceries I needed to do all of my Christmas cooking. (Which, incidentally, was a lot, considering that I put gift baskets together that had homemade breads, cookies, and other goodies in them.) So we spend an hour inside Meijer picking out all of our groceries and what not, wait in the line, get all of our items rung up, and that's when the incident ocurred which pissed me off so badly that I will never, ever shop there again.

I had to show the girl my driver's license because I was buying some beer. She looked on the back and saw my change of address sticker. When she gave me the total I wrote her a check. My checks still have my old address on them, which J.P. Morgan Chase told me was absolutely fine. I've probably written 50 checks since I moved and never had any trouble. I just cross out my old address and put my new address on the check along with my phone number. I give the check to the girl and she tells me that she can't accept it becuase the address on my check is different from the address on my driver's license. I pointed out to her that the address on the front of my driver's license is the same address that is on my checks becuase I just recently moved and wasn't about to throw out an entire box of unused checks. She says she's sorry, that it's just their policy, and Shaun asks for a manager.

The woman behind us in line says that she has the same problem, because she also just moved, and she swears she's written checks at Meijer since her move. I thought that I had left my debit card at home, which meant that if they didn't accept my check I was going to have to leave the store empty handed after having spent an hour picking out all my groceries. The manager comes over and says the exact same thing, "Sorry, but it's the store's policy." And so I asked the reason for the policy. I consider myself a reasonable person, if she had been able to give me any kind of reason for the policy I would have listened, but she couldn't. She just shrugged her shoulders and said, "It's just our policy." So at this point Shaun is getting out his money clip to see how much cash he has on him, and I look in my wallet and realize that I do have my debit card on me, so I use it and we go.

Today I went through my bank statements and added up how much money I have spent at that Meijer since moving into our apartment. The total came to a ridiculous $1,219.66. That's groceries, apartment stuff, Christmas presents, etc., but it is still a buttload of money to spend at one store in less than four months time. They lost a good customer that day because of a stupid policy for which there is no apparent reason. Down with Meijer!

When Losing & Finding Are The Same

I wrote this at NELP, Spring of 2002. Enjoy.

I can’t find anything. Ever. My mom might say that I am the worst Looker ever because whenever she says, “Go look for _______,” I can never find it. When I return to her empty-handed she will inevitably ask, “Well, did you look for it?” No mom, I just walked around aimlessly for twenty minutes peeking behind shelved knick-knacks and rummaging through drawers because I felt like it.

Often times I will be searching for something I know, something I’ve seen, something that has a usual place that it’s not in right now when my mother needs it. Like the scissors. Or the Scotch tape. I am notorious in my family for using the scissors, losing the scissors, and then still not finding them after twenty-five minutes or serious, hard-core, concentrated searching. At that point my mom interrupts whatever she happens to be doing, walks into my room and picks up the one piece of paper I happened to not look under, and lo and behold: the fucking scissors.

Part of the reason I am perpetually trying to find things is closely related to the fact that I tend to misplace things. I am always losing my stuff because I just have too much of it. At times I honestly think that I am physically incapable of throwing things away. Somehow I manage to convince myself that I might really want that little empty box that my lipstick came in for something sometime. Maybe I’ll give Nikki some Chap Stick and wrap it up really fancy. Or how about that little rectangular tin the last 500 free hours of AOL CD came in? I will definitely use that for something!

I collect all this crap thinking it’s valuable, thinking I’ll use it, and then I completely forget that I even have it. Then when I am ripping through my closet for something I really, actually, truly, desperately need to find, I’m bombarded with a colossal amount of shit, most of which I can’t even recall the reason for having kept.

When Hayden Caruth said, “losing and finding,” were the same, I wrote it down. I thought to myself, “If I weren’t always losing my shit, maybe I wouldn’t always need to find it.” This works fine for a discussion of physical objects, but what about how I once lost all of my courage at the end of a bad relationship? What about how I once lost all respect for myself when a selfish lover’s opinion of my sex appeal made me question my beauty? What about how I lost all my motivation for law school because Mark told me he’d break up with me if I became a lawyer, since, “…all lawyers are liars,” and he couldn’t date a liar?

I once misplaced my entire self, all the things that make me feel good, smart, and strong. I lost everything, including the sense of my immeasurable worth, because I didn’t even know that I had them. I took them for granted and they left me, as even the most patient lovers will do after years of neglect. It took losing those things to even realize that they existed, and then it took work to find them again. If I hadn’t lost myself in weakness and stupidity and emotion then I wouldn’t feel the way I do now -- that I can do anything I want ,and the only person I need is me. I had to lose me to find me, and I like what I’ve got, so I’m keeping it.

You Never Give Me Your Money

You only give me your funny paper.
And in the middle of negoti- ations
You break down.

I never give you my number.
I only give you my situation.
And in the middle of investigation
I break down.
___________________________________________________________

Two in one day, how lucky are YOU? Pretty lucky. That's what.

So yesterday 94.7 did The Beatles A to Z in honor of John Lennon. Yesterday was the 26th anniversary of his death. While in the car driving to Natalie's play, talking on the phone and singing, "Maxwell's Silver Hammer," (yes, I am one of those people that talks on my cell phone and drives at the same time) Matt told me he is trying to find a copy of Abbey Road so that he can frame it and hang it on the wall. He fancies himself like Paul, barefoot and out of step with the rest of the gang. I fancy myself like George: the only one in jeans.

At the intermission of Natalie's play, Uncle Greg, Mom, and I were discussing how timeless the music of The Beatles truly is.

And so today I am listening to Abbey Road.

That was really all I had to say.

Ooohh you're gonna carry that weight, carry that weight a long time!

Quit Yer Bitchin'

You buggers are some whiny a-holes when I have neglected my posting. (And when I say a-holes, please know that I mean it with love from the very bottom of my heart.)

So.... What's been new? Averting further relationship crises (plural, yes), X-mas planning, promotion at work (mo' money!), X-mas shopping, a little plotting and scheming, and uh, oh yeah, some more X-mas planning.

You know. The usual.

Oh, I am also hard at work procrastinating for the GRE. (See, most people study for it, I, however, am not like most people.)

Recently I have been thinking WAY too much about (dah, dah, dah): The Future. *gasp* Namely, what exactly it is that I want to get out of my future. I think I have come to the realization that thinking too much about *GASP* THE FUTURE will only help you to totally f*ck up your present. Because then it starts raining pressure -- pressure of the "So what the hell are we gonna do with our lives?!" variety. Worse than acid rain, yick! Which is just all bad.

*SIGH*

Sometimes I wish I could just be a little kid again. No worries, no life planning to do. Just playing with my dollhouse and reading the Little House on the Prairie books. Man, I loved those books.