Shopping, Carts, Beer and Sunday

I have decided that I hate grocery shopping. Aw, who am I kidding? I've always hated grocery shopping. It's just that the older I get, the more I hate it. Oh yeah, I detest it these days. One of the main reasons is Wal Mart. I hate Wal Mart in general, but I find myself there pretty often, against my own better judgement. Convenience always wins out over better judgement. A few things that send me into orbit at WM are:

1.  The shopping cart seat belts rarely work. I use them to strap my purse in the kiddie seat in case some hardened criminal comes along and tries to snatch it. Not that they'd be getting a big prize. My purses are typically pretty cheap and God knows I never have any real amount of money--either in cash or on cards. They'd be oh so disappointed.
2.  The shopping cart "corrals" are a long way from the really close parking spots so even if you're able to score a close space, you've still got to walk half a mile to store your cart. Unless of course you're one of those rude sonsabitches that just leaves their cart where they're done with it for it to slam into to an innocent vehicle because the fucking wind blew it across the parking lot.
3.  Those "people of Wal Mart" park in the middle of the aisle and just stand there looking at crap for what seems like an eternity.
4.  Self checkout is NOT your friend.
5.  My local WM just re-modeled about 6 months ago. I have still not figured out the scheme of things. I certainly get my exercise going from one side of the store to the other. I cannot believe they did not consult me when laying the store out.

All this and I'm not even to the real reason I hate grocery shopping--and that reason is:

1. You put crap in your cart.
2.  You take crap out of your cart to check out.
3. You put crap back in your cart when it's been rung up. God knows "they" ain't gonna help you take crap out of your cart or put it back in like in the good old days.
4.  You take crap out of your cart again to load it in your car which is a fucking mile away because there is not such thing as a close spot.
5.  You search for the cart corral--across the parking lot.
6.  You drive home.
7.  You take crap out of your car.
8.  You put crap up.

By my account, that means you've handled all this crap at least 6 times before you ever cook it and eat it.
I think if they had bars at grocery stores, shopping would be much more tolerable. Ooooooh! I know!! They should have those little mini store front bars like they do in NOLA....every 50 yards. Oh yeah.

This brings me to my other complaint. It's not really the store's fault, they're only following the law, but it's a stupid law. Why can we not buy beer on Sunday until noon? I suppose it's because church is going on until noon. Most people I know who attend church drink beer. Most of them couldn't care less that the rest of us heathens are waiting til noon to buy our beer. I'd be willing to guess that even God doesn't care that there's some stupid law prohibiting the sale of beer until noon on Sunday. I bet he'd rather see a law prohibiting certain attire in public places.

Observations from Fin-Land

Saturday night last, I went to Fin-Land. That's the name of Jimmy Buffett's tour this year. It was actually the first time I had been to Margaritaville in the flesh. Oh, I've been there plenty of times in my mind and as the result of one too many, but the first time I've seen JB live. I convinced a couple of darling friends to go with who had also never been to Margartiaville/Fin-Land. One of them had never been to a concert. God luv her, she was a trooper.

In retrospect, I learned  the following:

1.  Frisco is a pretty effin cool town. I always thought of it as just some space age new suburb of Dallas. Well, who knew? Turns out it's pretty darned cute. Lots of cool places to eat, cute shops, etc.
2.  Pizza Hut Park is a fine venue. I'll go back. But I won't sit on the floor again. Those stairs are hell on an old fat smoker woman. Suffice it to say, for that one night, I was a non-smoker. The next morning, my knee was the size of a giant grapefruit. Maybe I need to have that looked at......nah.
3.  Admittedly, I haven't been to a concert in a while (ok..several years), but man, things have changed. Beers are $11.00 and Margaritas are $14.00!! Holy crap!! I remember thinking $7.00 beers were outrageous.
4.  Free parking is the bomb.
5.  JB still looks pretty danged good for an old sonofabitch.
6.  The Coral Reefer Band has not faired so well.
7.  Young fat women will wear anything....especially if they're Parrotheads. Yikes.
8.  I see a golf cart in my future.
9.  I still hate crowds. Under the influence of a $14.00 margarita, they're more tolerable. ;-)
10. Yeah, I'm a Parrothead too.

   

Yes, I have road rage

Since the Highway Department of Texas decided to tear up and close every freakin' road in Tarrant and Dallas counties, life as I knew it has come to a screeching halt. Literally. Add to this the fact that peeps who didn't know how to drive under normal conditions, just unlearnt everything they ever knew.

I was pretty happy just making my way to work every day along the same route with an occasional side trip to Dallas every now and then. Now, my trip to work takes at least 15 minutes longer because of a fucking median "they" are building along the whole damn 7 mile stretch of road I take. Right lane closed. Left Lane closed. Changes every day, every mile. Drivers that wait until the last possible moment to get into an "unclosed" lane make the traffic back up even more. Fuckers.  The median has made life infinitely more difficult since one now has to go past where one wants to go and make a U-turn to get there. Ugh.

Then, there is the whole DFW Airport clusterfuck. Be advised if you want to go to the airport from the west, there is no official exit any more. Just some little half ass sign on top of another sign pointing the way to the detour which takes you half way around the airport. The airport on it's best day was a clusterfuck. Now, it's just all out of control. Ugh.

Don't try to go to Dallas from the west either, especially on any night. It seems at precisely 8PM they close the ENTIRE highway down. Again, you have to detour and end up going WAY out of the way to get where you're going.

AND, they've torn down really old, pretty trees all for the sake of another fucking lane.

All this to complete what they're calling the DFW Connector--whatever the fuck that means. Oh my. I will not be in a good mood again for years I fear, since that's what they say this whole project is gonna take. It's gonna be a long summer........