Cheese and Crackers

I’m in the mood for a nice, cleansing whine. What goes good with whine? Cheese, of course. I never seem to run out of things that cheese me off. As long as the rest of the world exists, I’ll always have a blog.

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I’m sure you’ve heard a version of this one: “When I was your age, we had to walk five miles to school. Barefoot. In the snow. And it was uphill both ways.” I can’t speak for the five miles or the barefoot part, but I can vouch for the rest.

It’s not school, though. It’s the library. I still can’t quite afford home Internet, so I get my connections at the library. Fortunately for me, the library is right up the street, less than a quarter mile away. I can see it from my yard. I could see it from the house if the bathroom window faced that way.

I could walk straight across the field and be there in five minutes except for one little obstruction: the 20-foot-wide stretch of water known as Cocalico Creek.

Y’see, I live in a river valley. Cocalico Creek runs through the entire western end of Ephrata, and the land runs downhill accordingly. It’s nearly impossible to get out of town without going up a steep hill. The Cocalico Creek flows precisely down the middle between the mobile home park and the library, which sits on top of a hill. In order to get there, I walk downhill, cross the bridge, then climb up the steep drive to the library at the top. I’m overweight and out of shape and toting a twenty-pound laptop. I haven’t had a heart attack yet, but it’s only a matter of time.

But wait, I hear you say. Wouldn’t it be all downhill going home? Nope, just halfway. Once I cross the bridge over the creek, the land begins its gradual upward slope again. So I do indeed have to walk uphill both ways. Though not always in the snow, because if it’s bad the library closes and all the ups and downs become moot.

I could walk the other road to the library, but that’s Route 272, the old highway. That one’s level. It’s also traffic-heavy, with no sidewalk and not much of a shoulder. And I’d still have to climb the hill to reach the library. I’d rather trudge up the other road than take my chances with drivers re-enacting the Indy 500.

As for school, I went to grade school at the Jersey shore. We had to swim five miles. Against the tide. Both ways.

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Being lazy as well as out of shape, and unwilling to lug the laptop to the summit of Everest, I usually just take the car. This comes with its own set of problems. When I’m in a parking lot, I try to find a pull-through, so I can see oncoming cars when I go to leave. My car’s been hit twice, both times in a parking lot by cars directly behind me backing out at the same time I was. One of those accidents happened at the library. You’ll forgive me for being paranoid.

The library doesn’t have any pull-through parking, but it does have a single line of spaces near the door. I always hope for one of these, not because they’re closer, but because there won’t be any cars parked behind me. When I back out I only have to worry about incoming traffic, and they’re usually nice enough to stop.

Here’s the part that cheeses me: motoring up the road to that long, steep drive, only to see another car turn in from the other direction. Watching that car trundle up the hill and knowing if there’s only one open spot in my chosen parking lane, he’s going to get it, and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.

If I drive up and all the spots are taken, that’s life. I just drive to the other side of the lot and hope the person parked directly behind me doesn’t decide to leave at the exact same moment I do. But seeing another car pull in just as I’m approaching the drive, knowing I’ve missed a prime parking space literally by seconds, that’s a hefty shot of Gorgonzola.

I try not to let it bug me. I should think instead about finding a job so I can get WiFi at home. Then none of this will be a problem any more.

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Home WiFi … easier said than bought. I took the car in for inspection last week and it just barely squeezed by. The Jetta will be celebrating its twentieth birthday next year. It’s only got 153,000 miles on it—I didn’t drive this one across the country like I did the last one—but the bottom’s rusting out. Fortunately it’s mostly cosmetic, except for the wheel rod that’s rusting through and the better-than-average possibility I’ll end up with a hole in the floor. Even with that I can probably get another year of driving out of it. Hey, if no floor was good enough for Fred Flintstone, it’s good enough for me.

Only now I’ll have to start saving my pennies, because at some point before this time next year I’ll have to plunk ‘em down for a car that’s not rusted. There goes the WiFi fund. I might be able to stretch the car’s life if I suck it up and walk up that goddamn hill to the library. It would even do my body some good. If I have a heart attack, I won’t need a car because I won’t be driving. Always try to find the silver lining.

Waiting for Cheese

Welcome to another installment in my sporadic “Things That Cheese Me Off” series. Today I’ll be ranting about one of my least favorite activities, waiting in line.

Lines do serve a purpose sometimes. I can use the time to plot out stories or decide what’s next on my schedule, or watch other people and make up stories about them. Or wonder why nobody ever wants to use the self-checkout registers. Those hardly ever have a line. Human nature, I guess. Even though the self-checkout would be faster, we still want another person to wait on us. Meanwhile, there’s a checkout person standing around and keeping an eye on the self-checkout scanners, in case anybody needs help. Instead of being paid to work, she’s being paid to stand and watch the customers do what used to be her job. Welcome to progress.

Usually, though, I hate lines. Most of my transactions can be accomplished in thirty seconds or less. In and out. Dream on. I’ve got all my ducks in a row, but there’s still that pesky mess called other people to deal with. See if any of these incidents seem familiar:

The other day I walked into the dollar store to check for Kleenex and a new notebook. The store was practically empty. I was there on a Tuesday afternoon. Who besides me is out and about on a Tuesday afternoon? For starters, the two people hogging the register when I went to check out. Nobody was standing at the register when I came in. They must have waited for me. Like that wasn’t bad enough, they were using their credit cards. This means time eaten up while they dig for the card, swipe the card, and try to sign their names on a tiny screen with a stylus that makes everybody’s signature look like a Kindergartener wrote it in crayon. I’m paying in cash, so all I have to do is hand over a fiver, pick up the change and I’m done. But first I have to wait in line behind the plastic users. I don’t know why stores even bother with express lanes any more. Any time you might have saved by having ten items or less gets eaten up with signing for the credit card.

And all the while that creepy girl guarding the self-checkout registers is standing there staring at you. This is progress?

I’m still paying bills by mail. I don’t trust having too many electronic fingers dipping into my checking account. (In my one experience with identity theft, I suspect the perpetrator was a laid-off employee of the credit card company. That was the only person who had access to my number.) However, my cable TV provider has an office—with actual human beings!—not far from where I live. Ditto for City Hall, which charges me for utilities. I usually pay these bills in person. Just stop by and drop off the check. On a good day, yeah. On a bad day there’s one other person standing at the payment window, and they’ve got a major problem. There’s only one payment window; cutbacks, y’know. That leaves me standing there for five to ten minutes or longer while the other customer works through his crisis. When my turn finally comes, I hand the clerk my bill and my check. All done. City Hall has a drop box I can use. The cable company used to have a drive-up window, but it’s closed. I don’t know if they still use the drop box. I should ask. With five to ten minutes on my hands, I’ve got plenty of time to work on my phraseology.

This gets even worse at the bank. I try to go in on off days, but that doesn’t always work. It doesn’t matter how many windows are open. There’s a customer at every single one, and they’re all doing a year’s worth of banking today, right when you walk in. And they don’t have their account number with them. And they want a hundred dollars’ worth of ones. So there I stand, leaning on the “Please Wait Here for Next Available Teller” sign, tapping my foot and seriously considering electronic banking. Except I don’t have home Internet yet. Better go stand in line at the cable company when I’m finished here.

And the grocery store! They’re the best. No matter which line you pick, it’s the slowest-moving, guaranteed. The grocery store is another place where nobody’s using the register until you go to check out. Then it’s all people with full carts stocking up for the month, when all you’ve got are cookies and cat food. And the lady right in front of you needs a price check. And the register tape just ran out and the cashier has to call for the manager because she’s never changed one before. And everybody’s using their credit cards. I’d go over to the self checkout, but I hate being stared at by Creepy Girl. At least the grocery store has magazines to flip through while you wait for the stock boy to run back and find out what tomatoes cost. I should go back to carrying a paperback in my purse. That’s how I used to get through unemployment lines, back before it went electronic.

Though electronic isn’t any better. First you have to go through the menu options, none of which are what you’re calling about. If you want to talk to a human being, good luck. You’re going to be on hold for awhile. You’re still waiting; you’re just doing it in the comfort of your own home now. When/if you do get a human being, odds are good it’ll be someone whose accent you can’t decipher. Isn’t technology wonderful?

These places should take a lesson from grocery stores and set magazine racks by the payment window so we’ll at least have something to read. Personally, I’m going to start carrying a notebook around and write a book while waiting in line. That’ll give Creepy Girl something to stare at. Win-win all around.

Cheese, Revisited

Here we go again. I’ve run short of topics, so you get to hear me bellyache about even more things that cheese me off. I’ll try to keep it short, but ranting is one of the things I do best. I make no promises.

Let’s kick off with one of my favorite peeves, other drivers. I drive a car. Other people drive trucks, vans, and SUVs. More often than not I find myself in a parking lot next to or between one or more of these monster vehicles. Everything’s hunky-dory until I go to leave. Here’s the problem: these things are bigger, higher and longer than my car. That seriously cuts down my field of vision when I go to back out of a space. I’m pretty much backing up blind.

Been in that situation? Expect other drivers to stop and wait while you back out of the parking space? Well, don’t, because they won’t. As recently as two days ago I was inching out of a spot when all of a sudden a car appeared in my rearview mirror and I had to slam on the brakes. The other car never slowed down. Maybe the driver saw me backing out. Maybe they didn’t. I don’t think it made that much of a difference.

Fellow drivers, let me spell it out for you. I’m parked next to an SUV. My visibility is nil. I CAN’T SEE YOU. I don’t know you’re there until my car’s ass end is right out in the street and your car’s front end is plowing into it. A warning toot of the horn would be appreciated. I don’t expect you to stop because apparently modern cars don’t come with working brakes. They don’t seem able to slow down, either. The only way a driver will stop for a car backing up is if they want your spot. In which case, fellah, give me some room. I can’t back out if you’re blocking me.

One little beep of the horn. That’s all you have to do. Alert me to your presence. I promise I’ll stop and patiently wait until you’ve sped past on your way to your dental appointment or job interview or whatever it is that’s so vitally important you can’t stop for three seconds or even slow down for somebody backing out of a parking space. Most of those silhouettes zipping by in my rear view belong to other cars. Their drivers must park in special lots that don’t take SUVs.

Whenever possible, I try to find a pullthrough. That way I’m facing the street when I go to leave and can see what’s coming at me. I’ve heard of blind spots, but through a front windshield? I didn’t know driving had been reclassified as a contact sport.

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Parking issues aside, I do enjoy driving. I like to amuse myself when I’m out on the road and can’t pull in a decent radio station. Here’s a little game I play on divided highways. I get into the slow lane, hold steady at the speed limit, and see who passes me. Usually it’s everybody. Then there’s the one guy going just below the speed limit that I have to go around. That’s when the guy going 80 shows up, just as I pull over to pass. I’ve been on a 65 MPH highway doing 70 or faster to pass somebody and still had some joker riding my bumper. Maybe it’s the same guy who just had to zip around me while I was trying to back up. I know his horn works, because he blasts me with it if I take too long passing the slow guy. Why couldn’t you use your horn while we were in the parking lot? Then I wouldn’t have backed into you.

I’m not sure why we even have speed limits. Do you actually drive 25 MPH when you’re in a 25 MPH zone? Do you know anybody who does? Of course not. Well, other than that little old dude in the Volvo, the one in the hat who’s always right in front of you when you’re late for work. He’s the same guy at the head of the line on those twisty country two-lanes, where it’s No Passing Zone for 30 miles and the speed limit’s 45 but he’s doing half that and there’s just no way to get around him. Here in Amish Country we get that with buggies, but we’re allowed to pass them if there’s no oncoming traffic. If you see a buggy backing up, better stop and wait for it. The horse never checks for other cars.

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Let’s get off the highway, shall we? This gripe involves pedestrians. A friend once referred to this phenomenon as “Nobody’s There Until You Are.” You’re walking somewhere and you stop for a split second and almost instantly get a quiet “Excuse me” because the one other person around absolutely has to occupy the very space you’re in at that precise same moment.

Example: years ago, when people needed TV Guide to see what was on every week, I stopped by a grocery store to get a copy. The store was practically empty. I couldn’t wait to see what was coming up on my favorite shows, so I ducked into an empty aisle and started flipping pages. Within minutes a shopper appeared. “Excuse me.” Yep. In an empty aisle in a nearly-deserted grocery store, I’d taken up position in front of the one item this woman had to have right then. Nobody’s there until you are.

And you people with the carts: you want to gab on your cell phones or chat with other shoppers, fine. Just move over to the side so we can get around you. Quit hogging the aisle. You’re not the only person in the store. Need proof? I’m going to zoom around you while you’re trying to back out of your parking space. Nothing like an expensive collision to remind you there are other people in the world, and they’re not paying any attention to you either.

That’s enough grousing. I’m going to sit home and write about fantasy worlds where they don’t have cars. Wonder if horse-drawn carriages used to back into each other? I’ll have to Google that.