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I went to the Safeway yesterday, to buy some laundry soap. As I neared the check out stand, with soap in hand I saw that a set of self serve check out stations had been installed since my last visit. Though the express lane adjacent to the self serve stations was without a line, I stepped boldly and confidently and I might say even a little smugly past a customer who was getting help from a young Safeway employee to the self serve station beyond. I after all, had done this before, at the Home Depot. You already know the outcome of course. Of the two possible outcomes, success or failure, only one would make a story.
I can’t remember with any precision the individual steps of this particular humiliation. I believe it was at about the fourth screen that the first expletive slipped softly from my lips. I think that was what brought the young lady to my side, she with her lightening fingers, her ever so patient voice and her magic all-purpose plastic card that swipes away the work of the uninitiated and incompetent. I know she was with me for about twice the time it would have taken her to ring up my soap at a check stand. I know there was reversal of the charge for the second, phantom, bottle of detergent that I had somehow recorded. I know she left me with the words, “There, now just blah, blah, blah.” I know the last screen, the one that I turned my back on to make my way to the still empty express lane, said “Continue your transaction at the pin pad.” It wasn’t that I didn't know what a pin pad is, or couldn’t find it. I think I had that. It was that I had no idea whatsoever what I might do in order to continue. I find that in order to continue at a pin pad it is necessary to have at least some vague idea what to do in order to continue.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Dental Floss
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This morning, when I had finished using it, I measured the length of my dental floss. It was twenty and a half inches. According to the label there are 43.7 yards (40 meters) on the spool. I floss nearly every day, probably 360 times a year. That would take 7,380 inches of floss or 4.7 spools. My father lived to be 96. If I do the same, (Strangely I find that I’ve come to assume I will.) that would be another 24.75 years, or measured in spools of dental floss, 116.3. My life expectancy measured in feet of dental floss is about 15,221¼ . Of course if I live to be 96 I may not floss on the day I die. Why would anyone floss during the last month of life? The whole point of dental hygiene, the brushing, the flossing, the going to the dentist, is to not out live your teeth. I think a person could safely quit flossing at least 2 years before dying.
My current floss is described on its container with 6 words. Isn’t that remarkable? Here they are: Crest, Glide, Deep, Clean, Cool, and Mint. So, two names, two adjectives and some kind of compound grammatical error. I guess what was meant was “deep cleaning”.
I once thought it might be interesting to compose a list of the most boring things I do. The first item on my list was flossing. On a recent visit to my optometrist I was instructed in a certain ritual cleaning of my eye lashes to be carried out each morning. Fat chance I’m going to start that.
This morning, when I had finished using it, I measured the length of my dental floss. It was twenty and a half inches. According to the label there are 43.7 yards (40 meters) on the spool. I floss nearly every day, probably 360 times a year. That would take 7,380 inches of floss or 4.7 spools. My father lived to be 96. If I do the same, (Strangely I find that I’ve come to assume I will.) that would be another 24.75 years, or measured in spools of dental floss, 116.3. My life expectancy measured in feet of dental floss is about 15,221¼ . Of course if I live to be 96 I may not floss on the day I die. Why would anyone floss during the last month of life? The whole point of dental hygiene, the brushing, the flossing, the going to the dentist, is to not out live your teeth. I think a person could safely quit flossing at least 2 years before dying.
My current floss is described on its container with 6 words. Isn’t that remarkable? Here they are: Crest, Glide, Deep, Clean, Cool, and Mint. So, two names, two adjectives and some kind of compound grammatical error. I guess what was meant was “deep cleaning”.
I once thought it might be interesting to compose a list of the most boring things I do. The first item on my list was flossing. On a recent visit to my optometrist I was instructed in a certain ritual cleaning of my eye lashes to be carried out each morning. Fat chance I’m going to start that.
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