- Good Idea - Purchase convenience store items at a convenience store.
- Bad Idea - Go to a drug store. Look back and forth between cigarettes and cashier a minimum of a dozen times. Chew on your tongue like it's a piece of juicy fruit. Ignore me behind you attempting to buy sinus medicine and Swedish Fish (2 for $7) before work. Finally ask cashier how much it is for a pack of Marlboro Lights. *GASP*....as if his answer took the breath out of you. Pay with crisp $100 bill. Fail to realize the irony of buying a carcinogen in a drug store.
- Good Idea - Closely control the dietary content you allow into your body.
- Bad Idea - Block the entire aisle with your cart. Read ingredients on every single bag of rice. Walk away not buying rice. (Even Uncle Ben rolled his eyes)
NOTE: Generally the main ingredient in rice...is RICE!!!
- Good Idea - Avoid shopping at Wal*Mart if you don't like crowds full of weird people - some of whom you've known since childhood (same rule applies to "fests" as in: Oktoberfest, Mayfest, Sausage Fest, etc.). This especially is important around the Christmas shopping season.
- Bad Idea -Bring a multi-generational caravan to the Wal*Mart by Backwards Jeff's house. Drive slowly, yet erratically, past my driveway as I attempt to exit. Stare at me, drool dripping from your partially opened mouth, as you pass by....."oh look at the guy who lives in the house near Wal*Mart....maybe he'd like to exit his driveway."
Solution: Don't go to Wal*Mart.....especially the one near my house.
- Good Idea - Paying with a check is still acceptable....especially if you are a member of the AARP. Filling in important information on the check such as date, store name, and signature before seeking out a cashier will keep the line behind you running smoothly.
- Bad Idea -Watch the cashier ring up all of the two-liters and cat litter. Wait for total. Dig through your purse to find the check book. Start to fill out check. Pause to ask part time high school student working register what the date is. Cashier calls the manager over. Nobody realizes that the check book itself usually includes three years worth of dates, the receipt is time stamped and you're standing next to a display full of kitten calendars.
- Good Idea - Should you find yourself with 15 items or fewer, by all means take your rightful place in the 15 items or fewer lane. Even grab a sixteenth item, a key chain flashlight or US Weekly for example, while you patiently wait your turn.
- Bad Idea - Employee your husband and three children as cart pushing decoys. Fill five (5) carts with exactly 15 items each- for a total of 75 items. Pretend that you don't know one another in 15 items or fewer line. Retrieve check book from your purse, ask what the date is, pass the check book to your eleven year old daughter in line behind you.
- Good Idea -In a pinch use the automated teller machine (ATM) to accomplish any urgent banking transactions. It's fast and you may not even have to interact with anyone.
- Bad Idea - Ignore the line forming behind you. Make a deposit. Make a withdrawal (using an ATM envelope that nobody else in the free world has a use for). Buy stamps. Change your pin. Roll forward seven feet. Apply lip gloss. Call your friend(s) to make dinner plans. Throw car in reverse to retrieve receipt and debit card - still in machine. Get angry at the driver behind you for having the nerve to pull forward to take his/her turn.Unleash a string of profanity. Squeal tires on your Honda Accord exiting the bank lot. Find yourself in traffic school....again.
- Good Idea - Take shelter from inclement weather inside your favorite wholesale club, hardware store or marketplace.
- Bad Idea # 1 - Ask soggy teenager in full rain gear if he/she "has any dry carts." Did you not just come in from the parking lot where Noah's descendants have begun constructing another ark? Have you failed to take note of the other 8,000 people with nothing better to do who, oh by the way, also require carts? Dry carts are most frequently associated with DRY WEATHER!!
- Bad Idea # 2 - Having cleared the shelves of bread, milk and bottled water, perch yourself -holding an umbrella - in front of the entrance so that other would be shoppers can neither enter nor exit the building. Moving out into the parking lot may allow for carts to be brought into the building to begin the process of becoming dry. It may also provide for a more clear escape route in the event of an emergency situation such as a fire or an anthrax attack. But, it's a widely held belief that avoiding frizzy hair is a much more important concern.
- Good Idea - Offer to be the designated lunch picker upper for your co-workers. What a wonderful way to maintain a happy work environment. Often times this will result in a free meal for the "flyer."
- Bad Idea - Pull into Arby's drive-thru with a spiral bound, three subject notebook filled with orders for the entire office. Twenty minutes later, inch closer to the pay window behind all of the other over-sized black sport utility vehicles. Listen to the voice of the drive-thru order taker echo off the hood of the car behind you as you have not left enough room for them to pull forward far enough to order for fear of scratching the paint on your Lincoln Navigator.
- Good Idea - Paste links to Backwards Jeff's blog in and on FaceBook, important office e-mails, other people's lunch bags, your children's homework and PINTREST. Increase the water cooler chatter about how witty and awesome these posts are.
- Bad Idea - Ask me for a dry cart.
You now have a voice friends!! The next time you are consuming and someone "gives you the business", think of your old pal, Backwards Jeff and have a laugh, or a drink, on me. You're welcome! ; )
Feel free to vent, or share your own stories, in my comments field.
Copyright J.C. Gardiner 2/22/2012
backwardsjeff@gmail.com
FB - http://www.facebook.com/pages/Backwards-Jeff/122548301200263
Twitter - @BackwardsJeff
Twitter #2 - DearCrabby (aka @JeffroGardiner)
I'd like to remind you, that you had this bright idea, in 2008 (and even provided a blueprint, scaled drawing while babysitting SIDA training in the ASSOC -at a classified location) that you were going to buy your neighbor's property that would allow you to extend a driveway in which you could exit from the side street.
ReplyDeleteI've been forced to back out of your driveway exactly two times, and each time i had to wait what seemed like 2 million seconds for there to be enough of a gap, where i held my breath in fear for my life waiting to be rear-ended while reversing at 100 km/sec.
While, I agree the location sucks, it's not like you went to bed in Kansas, and wake to find it your house was dropped out of the sky and happend to fall on Kyles lane (and not in Munchkin land.) You were aware of the crappy location when you bought the house. So suck it up and and stop complaining already.
Btw, can i have the second box of swedish fish now?
You should try backing out at 7:45 a.m. when school is in and the roads are icy!! Took me literally more than a half hour one morning.
ReplyDelete