hushed gray: the Kevin chronicles

Thursday, November 29, 2007

I want a do-over
It's a good thing this week is almost done because I've grown rather weary of it. It's not that any great calamity has befallen me; I simply feel beaten up.

First of all, I seem to have caught...something. I had a scratchy throat Tuesday and Wednesday, and woke up this morning with my throat somewhat sore and my voice all but gone. My back aches like crazy and for the last couple of days I haven't felt like doing much other than going to bed though I have because that's all part of the game--and because I'm not sure I've accumulated any sick days yet. And although I've felt "out of it," I can't say I've felt sick enough not to go to work. I'm not sneezing any more than I would any other day, and my nose isn't running--it's just my throat and a general tired feeling, so it's a very strange sort of unwellness.

Despite feeling like crud, I stopped to pick up my suits from the dry cleaner's on the way in from work this evening. I then stopped at the gas station and tried to use my debit card to pre-pay at the pump. It told me to see the cashier inside, something it did to me once before when I accidentally entered the wrong number. I thought I'd entered it correctly, but...oh well. Not knowing exactly how much fuel I needed, I decided trying to pre-pay inside was just asking for trouble, so I opted to put off buying gas and instead go buy groceries.

I spent probably 40 minutes in the grocery store, ended up with around $80 worth of stuff. Got in a checkout line, it took several minutes for the woman in front of me to get checked out. Once that was done, the cashier scanned all my stuff and told me the total.

Now, the last time I was in this grocery store, a cashier gave me a coupon for $1.00 off three packs of cheese--and this particular brand of cheese happened to be on sale, so I thought hey, I'll do this. Well, the cashier tonight couldn't figure out how to process the coupon because it had no bar code (it had no bar code when the first cashier gave it to me). There was a long line behind me, so I finally told her to just forget about that coupon, I didn't want to hold people up. So then I swiped my debit card.

And the machine said, "Processing...please wait." So I waited. And waited. And waited.

The cashier had me try swiping again. So I did. And the machine said, "Processing...please wait." So I waited. And waited.

We repeated this process several times, the management types at the front of the store not seeming too concerned about it. Granted, it was busy.

I generally consider myself a patient person--I have my moments, but generally--and I think I was very patient tonight. I was willing to wait for the machine longer than the cashier was interested in waiting for the machine. But after probably five or six minutes, my patience wore thin. I was still very, very polite--subdued, even, because as I mentioned earlier all I feel like doing is curling up in bed. But I finally told them they'd have to keep their groceries because I didn't have that much cash on me. And I left. There's a reason certain grocery store chains have gone bankrupt.

At this point I was wondering if the bank had for some reason canceled my debit card. It worked on Sunday, and as of yesterday my account had plenty of money to cover the amount of groceries I was trying to buy. And the machine never actually told me the card was not accepted--it just said, "Processing...please wait." But after the earlier trouble at the gas station, I wondered....

So I drove to my bank's nearest ATM, popped my debit card in there, and withdrew cash without a problem. Okay, so my card still works. So I decided to go back to the gas station. Swiped the card through the gas pump, entered the requested number, and filled up the car, no problem. I did not make a return trip to the grocery store since I really don't feel well and have a lot I need to do to get the apartment into somewhat liveable condition before the Sabbath.

And I really don't know what the problem was with my card at the grocery store. I rather doubt it was actually the grocery store's fault--my guess is the credit card processing was bogged down for some reason. But the machine could have at least indicated it was "unable to connect" or something. But no, no. We never got as far as me entering my pin number, so I shouldn't get charged for the groceries I wasn't able to take with me.

On a positive note, work has gone fairly well this week despite my unwellness. My boss has been out of the office the last two days and will be so again tomorrow, so there have been some slow periods, but I've kept myself as busy as possible. Even had a deadline to meet this morning when Events at 10:30 a.m. decided to throw a stack of updates my way--and tell me they needed them done by a meeting scheduled for 11. I enjoyed the little adrenaline rush of racing the clock--and I got it done, too. Booyah.

Alright, that's enough for tonight. I'm going to wait for my french fries to finish baking, then eat them, then iron the shirts I washed while at home last weekend. Happy Sabbath, and goodnight.

posted at 7:14 pm | permalink | 1 comment

Archives (by topic)
LEGOs | Web & technology | Work