Year: 2005

Oct. 27th, 2005|12:56 pm: Went to Wendy’s for lunch today and the same guy who gave me $1.00 too much in change last week took my order. The total was $4.93 and I give him a $5 bill and say, “And here, I have 3 pennies.” and I quickly select 3 pennies from a handful of change and give it to him. He’s already put the $5.00 into the register and the digital display shows that he owes me 7 cents. He stands there with the 3 pennies in his hand, staring blankly at the register. After what must be 30 seconds, I finally tell him, “You owe me 10 cents.” and he says “Oh!” and hands me a dime. How has he kept a job there for so long? His drawer must come up short/over every day if he gets that easily confused.

It reminds me of this time at McDonald’s drive-thru…I posted this on the notla.com forums on September 6th, 2001 – here’s a copy & paste of the incident: This isn’t a complaint really, just kind of a stupid incident that happened to me at the East Alton McDonald’s. I went through the drive-thru and placed my order. The total came to $7.35. When I got to the first window, a high school kid told me it’d be $7.35 and I handed him 35 cents, a twenty and 2 ones. He closed the window and started to put in in the register.

Then he opens the window and says, “It’s only $7.35 – you gave me $22.35 here.” I told him I realized that and he says sarcasticly, “Well here’s $2.00 of your change!” and tries to hand me the 2 ones. I tell him I’d rather not have the ones and just to take it out of the $22.35. He looks at me for a second and shuts the window. Then he calls a friend over and I see him explaining to him how I must be retarded, holding up the money and motioning towards me.

THEN he punches the $22.35 into the touch screen register and sees my change is $15.00 even. He stares at the screen for a minute, pulls out a five and ten and hands me my change without saying thank you and not looking directly at me.

I don’t blame the guy really, he’s just a high school kid who’s probably never had a register job before. He could have tried not being quite so rude about it, or at least said “thank you” when he realized his mistake. But at least it gave me a laugh for the day.

Oct. 26th, 2005|10:56 am: Irony: Moving the washing machine and dryer into storage, getting rust from the bottom of the machines all over my hands, wiping my hands on my pants and shirt, needing my pants and shirt washed, no longer having a washing machine and dryer to wash them with. Maybe that’s not irony, but I’m better than Alanis Morisette at coming up with examples.

Yesterday, SBC’s automated voice recognition system said to me, “You just said ‘no’. Is this correct? Please say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ now…” I snickered as I said ‘yes’ to it, which confused it even more.

Oct. 18th, 2005|01:19 pm:

	Welcome to Wendy’s, may I take your order? This guy gave me $1.00 too much back in change because I confused him by giving him 3 pennies after he’d already input my $20.00 bill. I was nice and gave him back the dollar though.
	I wonder if I should make a comment about the DEAD FLY IN THEIR COMMENTS CARD HOLDER!

This is the same Wendy’s that me and Amy pranked a few months ago for the misspelling on their sign. As I was ready to leave, some old lady approached me and started talking to me about how she heard I was moving and how they’d all miss me. Which was nice except I had no idea who the lady was. So I smiled and nodded and agreed a lot. When this happens, as it often does, I’m usually prepared to say, “I’m sorry but I don’t know who you are.” Then I have a small laugh with whoever it is about my terrible memory. But this lady was so happy to see me and sad to see me leaving that I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I have no idea who she is. She knew all about me and that my kids were in Oregon and that I was selling my house and my job and everything. I wonder if it was a relative.

I seem to have below-average face recognition skills. Maybe it’s because my eyesight is so screwed up. Or maybe that’s my pitiful excuse for having a terrible memory. Maybe I just have brain damage. Me and her BSed for 2 or 3 minutes before I finally said I needed to get going. She had a husband with her at her table and I didn’t recognize him either.

Oh yeah…while I was standing in line waiting for my food, the lady next in line suddenly sees somebody she knows at the drive-thru window. And they begin having a very loud conversation with each other, across the counter and the kitchen area. The conversation turns a little sour at the end with the lady next to me yelling at the window person that they need to go home. It was pretty obnoxious.

Saturday, October 15th, 2005: Kind of wasted away my whole day so far. Woke up earlier than I should have – 8:00am. Showered and went to McDonald’s for hotcakes and sausage. Played on the net, sat on the porch and read my book for awhile. Then I decided to be hardcore about my Mark Twain reading – I drove to the park and sat on the Mississippi for a couple hours to read. Climbed over the rail at Riverfront Park and sat on the ledge for an hour or two. Here’s a few pictures that probably look exactly like the pictures I took last year from the same location.

Barge on the Mississippi	Another, going under the Clark Bridge	Alton’s loudly-colored Casino

Came home, got on the net, talked to Jammie and then ended up falling asleep for 2 or 3 hours. I never nap and I guess it was the power of suggestion since Jammie hung up with me to go take a nap. Woke up, got some Taco Bell and now I’m updating my journal. A completely unproductive day, but somewhat enjoyable so far. I just noticed that my Mark Twain book has various bugs smashed into the pages now. Kind of gross. I’ve counted 3 so far.

By the way – do the tables surrounding these pictures break your friends view? Last time I posted pictures in this fashion, a couple complained that it did. If it does, let me know and I’ll do that LJ break thing.

Should I feel guilty for not giving money to beggars? This lady comes up to me at the post office and in a high whiney voice asks me for money so she can feed her kids. I assume bullshit, tell her that I’m sorry but I never carry cash on me. She comes into the post office and kind of surveys the crowd of people in line for awhile, then leaves. I just have a really hard time believing that in Alton a person would have trouble feeding their kids. Maybe I’m just blind to some major problem we have in Alton where moms can’t feed their kids. Or maybe I’m just a jerk.

Earlier this year, this old man approached me while I was eating in Subway. I’d seen him around town before, sometimes in even in Subway. He had the classic bum look with the old raggy clothes, the unshaven face and the smell. He asked me if I could spare some money because he had $50 earlier that day but he lost it and now he’s stranded. Or something like that. It was about the lamest story I’ve ever heard. Maybe the problem is that I’ve lived in a lot of big cities and been approached for money so many times and these amateur beggars in Alton just aren’t very good. Or maybe the problem is that I’ve been homeless before and I’ve been tight with other homeless people and I know that most of the people that beg for money really just don’t feel like getting jobs. And by giving them money we’re enabling them to continue not having jobs. Or maybe all that is just my excuse for being a jerk.

Anyway, about the old man in Subway…I didn’t give him anything. And I honestly would have bought him a meal and sat down and ate with him. But I could barely understand what he was saying because of some speach problem of his. So I told him I don’t carry cash on me and he left. And yes, I know, I’m a horrible person for not wanting to hang out with someone solely because of a handicap of theirs. But that’s not the bad part of this story…

Just a day or 2 after that incident this old man commits suicide. And not just any old suicide. He walks to the Amtrak station in Alton and lays down on the tracks. Someone sees him laying there and yells at him to get off the track. The old man sits up for a second, then lays back down. Minutes later a train comes and probably slices him in half. The next day I’m shocked to see his picture in the paper and read what he’s done. To think that he might not have done that if I’d just given him $5.00 for a meal. Not that I blame myself for it, but geez…

And on a lighter note, I’m really going to miss the hell out of the uptown Subway. I’ve been going there every other day or so for about 5 years now. They play classic rock there, really loud. And sometimes the sandwhich makers (excuse me, sandwhich artists) sing along while they create sandwhiches. Who plays classic rock in a Subway? But that gives it kind of a unique character. Not that I even like classic rock very much, but it’s nice to get a little 30 minute dose of it every day. I bet the Subway in Albany will play light rock via satellite instead of just sticking in their Zepplin CDs.