Week 47: Why Black Friday and Saturday didn't seem black to me.

This weekend was what is called “Black Friday”.  The day after American Thanksgiving is usually a madhouse at the stores.  People have to get the Black Friday bargains!  There are usually fights and stampedes and all kinds of chaos!  I wanted to see all of this for this year.  I can remember wanting to go to the mall last year, but there was nowhere to park.  Every single parking space was taken the Saturday after Black Friday last year!  I couldn’t even park my car!

This year was different.  I went to the mall today and there were plenty of parking spaces.  I walked into the mall to look around and there were people all over the place, but most of them didn’t seem to be buying anything.  Most of them were just standing around and staring at cell phones.

I didn’t find much to interest me at the mall.  The place also had a really strong smell of incense, soap, and perfume.  Maybe there were other scents, but it seemed to me like those were the prevailing scents.  It would have been nice to smell cotton candy, or maybe cinnamon, or something a bit more Christmasy, but no, just the strong soap and perfume smell.  Almost enough to make you sick.

And so I moved on.  I figured maybe people were in the huge department stores like Target.  So I drove to a nearby Target.  Plenty of parking spaces and again lots of people inside, but the cashiers didn’t seem busy at all.  I picked up some almond M&Ms and used the self-checkout lane without waiting in any kind of line.  Lots of people in the store, but again no one buying anything.  Just a lot of people staring at cell phones.

Maybe the people were all at the grocery stores getting food?  Nope!  I drove to two different stores to get my groceries and didn’t have to wait in a line to buy anything.

I think online shopping is more popular than ever this year.  People will go out and look in the stores, but don’t seem to be buying.  I’d rather stay home and hang out than go out and stare at a cell phone in a mall!

Moving on, tomorrow is my birthday.  I’ll be turning 51 years old.  I’m fat, old, and cranky now.  You can say “No, 51 isn’t old, it’s middle age”, but I think you’d be wrong.  I really doubt I’ll live to 102 which means I’m past “middle age”.  I’m not totally unhappy, though.  I’ll have to work for my birthday night, but that won’t be so bad.  I think it will be better than if I was unemployed for my birthday.  I’ll hopefully be thrilled when I’m retired and don’t have to go to work for my birthday, but by the time I have enough to retire on, I may be too old to do anything, or go anywhere!  I’m sure I’ll figure something out.

So for week 47 I wonder why this Black Friday didn’t seem so black.  Is everyone really buying all their presents online?  As Alice would say, “Curiouser and curiouser”.  Down the rabbit hole we go!  Time to celebrate my birthday a day early this year and watch some movies and play a few video games.  Until next week when I’m officially 51, keep asking why.

Week 46: Why I'm happy with nothing!

This weekend I finally had nothing to do!  Absolutely nothing!  And I was really thankful for the nothing!  I also seemed to have caught the flu, so it was the perfect weekend for nothing.  For weeks now I’ve had things to do on my days off, doctor appointments, getting my driver’s license renewed, work cards, fingerprints, it was never ending.  Finally though, a weekend of peace.  And I didn’t mind having the flu very much because I was able to just stay home and rest!

Even though I had nothing to do, there still seemed like so much to do.  I blame that on all the technology I have now.  Back in the 1980’s if I didn’t have anything to do I could just sit around and watch whatever was on television, or maybe play the radio, or take a nap.  Now I can watch things on Netflix, play with my computer, or iPad, or even work on finishing some video games that I’ll probably never finish.  So many choices!  But they’re all at home!  I don’t have to go anywhere!

I did stop off and pick up a few groceries, but for the most part I just stayed home and enjoyed not going anywhere.  Traffic is horrible and it’s not even Black Friday yet!  Next week will be Black Friday.  I’ll stay home and watch on television as people kill each other for a “deal”!

As for some unnamed relatives annoying each other with Christmas decorations, you rock!  As for me, I’ll go back to enjoying my nothing.  I won’t question it, either.  But you all can still keep asking why.  Until next week, bye!

Week 45: Why I didn't do much for Veteran's Day.

Welcome to Veteran’s Day!  I happen to be a veteran!  I’m not retired, or a wartime veteran, but I still served.  So what did I do this Veteran’s Day?  Not much.  At least I had the day off from work.  A guy at my work place suggested I go to one of the places in town giving veterans a free meal.  I think a lot of those places are really packed with veterans and even sometimes people who aren’t veterans, but are trying to get free food.  I’m not much for crowds, so that was out.

I was invited to go see an air show at Nellis Air Force Base, but declined that, too.  I’ve seen an air show before I enlisted.  You stand around and look up as pilots zoom by in jets.  I wasn’t really impressed as a kid. And probably wouldn’t be impressed now.  I’d just be tired after standing around all day on a flight line.

So what does being a veteran mean to me?  It means I get a bunch of people telling me “thank you for your service", but that’s about it.  Do I get a benefit on my taxes for serving?  Nope.  Can I maybe decline serving on a jury if I get a jury notice?  Again, nope.  Maybe I get paid holiday pay for Veteran’s Day?  HAHAHAHAHA  that would be a huge no.

To me being a veteran meant I spent four years wearing a blue (actually most of the time it was green, or “forest” colored) uniform.  I figured the military would teach me a nice trade that I could use after I was discharged.  They taught me a trade alright, I was just never able to use it in the civilian world.  I guess I could have went on to become a spy, but sometimes those guys get shot in the head.  I’m not a huge fan of that.  The Air Force did actually teach me quite a bit, though.  I might bitch and complain about the military sometimes, but they did give me a fair amount of discipline and taught me how to handle things on my own if I need to.  I don’t regret joining up and if I had the same chance again, I’d still join even if it was wartime. 

So I didn’t do much today.  I visited with my family and went to the grocery store.  I bought some stuff that says it’s Salsa Verde Spicy.

Green and spicy, it looks wonderful!  I have some nice tortilla chips to dip into it and I’ll be digging into this stuff as soon as my blog is finished!

Another thing I really need to do is to buy myself a new computer chair.  The arm rest broke off my current one and if I don’t get a new one, I keep feeling like I’m going to end up stabbing myself to death when I accidentally fall. 

Doesn’t that look really sharp?  It is!  I’ll order myself a new chair soon.  I think it’ll run me around $100.  I may wait until after Thanksgiving when all the Christmas sales come out.  Maybe I’ll be able to get a chair on sale.  I’ll most likely order it from Amazon and have it delivered to my door.  I’ll have to put it together myself, but that shouldn’t actually be too difficult.

Well, that’s the blog for today.  I guess the only real questions this week are how will the green salsa taste and why haven’t I bought a new chair quite yet?

I’m still pretty certain that for next year I’m going to move on to videos every week.  So instead of 52 weeks of Why, we’ll have 52 weeks of life.  Live action bullshit!  I’ll have to figure out what to film when I don’t really go out and do anything.  *chuckle*  So until I end up doing that, keep asking why.

Week 44: Why I was back at the Department of Motor Vehicles

Yes, this week I had to go back to the lovely DMV.  I hate that place and I’m sure everyone else hates it, too!  There’s always some problem.  A machine doesn’t work, or things are suddenly costing more than they should.  It’s always some kind of struggle.  If I wanted to keep legally driving though, I had to go back.  My driver’s license expires on my birthday of this year, November 26, 2017.  I need to drive to work, and work to pay bills, so I need a new license. 

I was worried about the eye test.  I’m getting older now and my eyes aren’t the best.  But I went to the eye doctor and have new glasses.  There should be no problem with the eye test.  I checked online and found things that looked like this:

That should be no problem.  I can see well enough to read letters and things. The legal requirement is supposed to be something like 20/40 vision in one eye.  At least that’s what I think it is.  Who really knows, though? 

I wanted to get there nice and early and so maybe I wouldn’t have to wait hours for my turn.  So I got there about ten minutes before it opened at 7:50am.  There was a huge line out front.  I can wait in a line, I had planned on that anyway.  Now there’s also the problem of “real ID”.  Supposedly you won’t be able to fly anywhere by the year 2020, or 2021 if you don’t have a “real ID”.  Your driver’s license can be a real ID as long as you have the proper documents.  And so I collected all the things I should need.

I get up to the first desk pretty quickly to tell the lady what I’m there for.  Things moved pretty fast once the place opened.  I tell her I need to renew my driver’s…”FILL THIS OUT!  WHAT’S YOUR CELL PHONE NUMBER? WAIT TO BE CALLED!

What the hell?  My cell phone number?  I ask the lady if she’s going to give me a number so I know when I’m being called.  She grunts that the last four digits of my cell phone number are what they’ll call.  Well damn, now how am I going to know how many people are in front of me?  I sit down in front of a board showing who’s next and try to fill out my form.  Before I even get halfway finished with the form, my cell phone number comes up on the board.  I hustle over to the window listed and find this old, troll lady scowling at me. 

I tell her I’m not finished with my form yet and she starts growling instructions for me to finish it!  I tell her I need the “real ID” and I have my documents and she demands my birth certificate.  I pass over the certified copy and she growls back, “WE DON’T ACCEPT COPIES!  WHERE DID YOU GET THIS?”  I tell her I got it from my mother.  That’s been good for almost 51 years, but the troll isn’t having any of that.  She denies me a “real ID”.  I’m in no mood to fight, so I just ask for my driver’s license to be renewed.

I ask what documents I need for the renewal and the troll just grunts at me and types on her computer.  She then demands I pull this electronic thing over and look into it and read the first box.  I pull the thing over and look inside.  I can see the box, but everything inside it is a mushy blur!  What the hell?  I can’t see anything!  I can barely make out some speed limit signs on the bottom, but I can’t make out any letters!  My vision is bad, but not so bad I would fail an eye test!

Now I’m starting to panic.  If I fail the eye test, I don’t get a driver’s license.  I need my license!  First, no “real ID”, now the troll may fail my eye test!  For some reason I shifted my head a bit and then things came a bit into focus.  They’re not normal letters though, it’s a bunch of numbers.  It’s like some magical, mystical, 3-D puzzle that you have to unravel and look at from the correct angle, or you don’t get your license.  FINALLY though, I can at least make out the numbers.  It really didn’t seem like a fair eye test to me.  Now the troll does a bit more typing and then demands payment.  I ask if my debit card is ok and the troll growls back “WE RUN EVERYTHING AS A CREDIT CARD!”  A simple “yes” would have been nice.

I had brought my DD-214 along (A copy really, that’s my military discharge form) so that they can print “Veteran” on my license.  For a few minutes I thought the troll was going to tell me that wasn’t enough proof of my being a veteran!  She tells me I can’t have my documents back until after my photo is taken, and then gives me back my documents anyway.  I’m told to go “over there” for my photo.  I wander “over there” in the direction the troll had pointed.

I found a line with people waiting for their photos to be taken and was waiting my turn.  There was only two people in front of me, but the line wasn’t moving at all.  I looked around the place at the other trolls, or employees, or whatever they are working there.  No one looked the slightest bit happy.  They were all scowling and seemed to hate people.  How lovely for them to work with people all day. 

Finally my turn does come and the guy takes my photo and uses some machine to punch the word “VOID” into my current license.  I’m not sure I like that.  Now I have a slip of paper until they get around to mailing me my new license in “seven to ten working days”.

While I had been doing all this, my cell phone was going off left and right.  Someone was texting me.  I’m thinking, “Leave me alone, I’m trying to get this done!”  I didn’t bother to look until later.  When I finally checked my messages, they were all from the DMV. 

The first message said there were four people ahead of me.  Then a message that said I should only be waiting one more minute.  Then a text to go to window 6.  And finally a text telling me they had given my spot in line to someone else.  If I was being helped at window six, how did they give my spot away?  The DMV doesn’t even know what they’re doing!

On the good side, that’s been taken care of.  The new driver’s license should be good until 2025.  They can stick the “real ID” thing where the sun doesn’t shine.  I’m not going back for one of those. 

In other news for me this week, I used a Cupcake ATM.

This was actually pretty neat!  I chose what flavor I wanted, used my debit card to pay $4.50, and the ATM gave me the cupcake!  I haven’t tried it yet, but it looks delicious!  I’ll try and upload the video of me using the ATM to my Facebook page if anyone is curious.

So until next week, keep asking why there aren’t more cupcake ATMs!  And keep asking why about everything.