Perspective

Sometimes I forget that other people aren't used to high conflict in relationships. I was talking once with a friend of mine and he stated that once he had been so angry at a girlfriend that he had slammed a door.

I started laughing and confessed that I had been so angry at a boyfriend that he had had to jump out of the way as I drove down a sidewalk in an attempt to run him down.

Adjusting

What used to be blogging time is now commuting time. What used to be "let me comment on blogs during my breaks" at my old job is now, "I'd better not read any blogs until I've been here for a while". I'm still not used to visiting blogs only in the evening so bear with me as I adjust to the new schedule.

Because the bed is not comfortable?

My cat Tasha likes to sleep on top of my stacked clean towels. Or any clean laundry. Fur Snake claims any sweater or pair of pants that I leave lying on the floor. She favours the sweaters because they are the most difficult to remove cat hair from. The couch and bed, both of which can stand a little cat hair, are left for me. Unless there is a chance for either cat to sleep on my favourite pillow.

I give up.

Pumpkin parade

I took a different route home yesterday and when I arrived at the nearby park I saw hundreds of Jack o'lanterns all lit up. It was magical. Apparently the area was having a pumpkin parade.

[pics courtesy of bigdaddyhume whose Flickr site I stumbled across of the event]

New math

Last night I was out buying something that was priced $9.99. I asked the cashier for $40 cash back. Now, logically, doesn't your mind think "hmmm... that's $10 plus $40 so $50 should be the total, plus a bit for tax."

Instead she handed me the keypad to punch in my PIN, and the total read $31. She had subtracted the purchase price from my cash back. When I first saw the price I said to her, "$31? But, I asked for $40 cash back"

Her look was completely blank. Or not so much blank as, "But that's what I gave you" In fact she did try to explain that that was what I was getting.

Sweet Mary, mother of god, we are all getting too reliant on machines. It took over five minutes for the supervisor to come and void the transaction and for the girl to run it all through again. She wasn't a stupid girl. She seemed quite bright, but quite frankly, this is the sort of mistake that NO person in high school should be making, no matter what their intelligence level. She just wasn't used to using her mind so that when she had entered the numbers incorrectly into the cash, she couldn't see that it literally didn't add up.

I was reading somewhere that we need to start using our minds more for simple memory in order to stay sharp. The article recommended memorizing phone numbers. It's true that I have no clue [apart from my parents' number] what anyone's phone number is. They are all programmed into my cell phone. Machines are great, but in some ways they are dumbing us down as a society.