Gypped ... almost.

I just visited a nearby CVS pharmacy, and I left glumly reminded how rampant ignorance is in the world around us. 

My visit was prompted by a 30% off coupon I had received by email.  Seemed like a good opportunity to stock up on stuff.  List in hand, I cruised the CVS aisles, grabbing dental floss, Alka Seltzer, and so on.  As I dropped items into my cart, I kept a rough running total in my head.  When I was done, my estimate came to $70.  I headed for the checkout counter, contemplating with gratification the amount of money I would be saving. 

At the computer/register, I waited a while as the young man behind the counter apparently had some problem in the transaction with the somewhat perturbed woman ahead of me.  When he was through with her, I handed the unsmiling fellow (hard to tell his age, but he certainly was no more than a teenager) my CVS Extra Care card, and proceeded to pile my selections on the counter.  I watched the mini-screen on the credit card apparatus as the kid scanned the items.  Grand total before taxes:  $70 and change.  Score one for my mental acumen. 

Now here’s where things went wrong.  The young man pointed his handheld scanner at the coupon I had printed out.  The scanner failed to read the barcode.  Next, he keyed in the numbers printed below the barcode.  Apparently that didn’t work either, because he picked up a small calculator, and began hitting buttons.  All this in absolute silence. 

On the mini-screen, I saw that my cost reduced to $65.  I’m no mental Stephen Hawking, but $70 times 10% is $7 times three is $21.  I told the young man that the discount had to be near that amount, and not $5.  He looked at me with barely concealed exasperation.  He began re-scanning all my items to un-purchase them back down to zero, at which point he repeated the scanning until we were back at $70.  No explanation, of course.  Again, the young man picked up the calculator, and got to work. 

I glanced around at the customer waiting behind me.  He nodded solemnly.  He was in my corner.  Finally, on the mini-screen, the discount showed up as $19 and change.  Knowing that sometimes certain items are exempt from discounts (and to avoid dragging out the process), I quietly decided “close enough.”  I swiped my credit card, and completed the transaction. 

It boggles the mind – my mind at least – that people are hired to handle cash and credit card business when they seem to be, to be kind, clueless.  And, what irritated me, as I toted the overstuffed white plastic CVS shopping bag back to my car, was my belief that most people don’t pay attention when they shop.  I’m willing to bet the farm that, had that young man been the customer, he’d have headed home carefree and unaware that he’d been gypped of something around $15. 

Dr. Zhivago and Scaring the Poop out of Charlie

Charlie the Dog has been scratching and chewing around his rear end for a week or two, so today was trip-to-the-vet day.  As Sandy and I were getting on our heavy coats for the short drive in frigid weather to the Vet at the Barn, Charlie freaked out.  Charlie suffers from separation anxiety, and won’t eat or drink or play with his toys while we’re not home.  How do we know what he does or does not do when we’re out?  Because not a thing is eaten or moved until we return home.  (The lone exception is an unfortunate, now torn sofa pillow that takes one for the team.) 

 

But today Charlie outdid himself.  Sensing something was up, he went into a whining, squealing, crying, yelping fit, and refused to calm down.  It got so bad that he crapped.  In the house.  Fortunately, it was on the old rug in the basement, and the poop was firm enough to easily pick up with a plastic baggy (yeah, I know, poor rug).  In Sandy’s car, the dog continued his meltdown, even in Sandy’s arms; his high-pitch yelping hurt my ears, making it hard for me to focus on my driving.  I could see myself being pulled over by a cop for swerving and driving while under the influence ... of a panicked dog. 

 

We were the first of the morning at the vet.  Even so, we had to wait 20 minutes while the doc had her morning coffee, I assume.  The wait was an ordeal with devil dog barking and whining, squirming, trembling, and pulling, worse than ever before.  Finally, Charlie was examined by the vet, and led away to some unseen back torture chamber where he got his rabies shot, a blood sample drawn, his rear end attended to, and a sedative administered.  The doctor gave (or should I say sold) us a bottle of the doggy downers.  To be fed to him two at a time with meals. 

 

As we left the building, even with a somewhat high Charlie pulling, Sandy and I breathed sighs of relief that it was over.  So we thought.  When we got to Sandy’s car, it too whined and squealed, but, unlike Charlie, it wouldn’t go anywhere.  The battery was dead.  Apparently, in the frenzy of our arrival, I had neglected to turn off the headlights when I parked at the vet. 

 

We stepped out again into the freezing air, and back to the vet’s barn we three plodded.  I asked if anyone had jumper cables.  The pleasant young receptionist nodded, got on her coat, and pulled her car around near Sandy's Honda Accord where I met her.  With hands trembling from the cold, I attached the cables from her battery to ours, and ... nothing.  Well, not nothing; sparks were flying.  I detached the cables, thanked the good Samaritan, and again went back into the building. 

 

Sandy got on her cell phone to her auto club.  A recording told her that the wait for service was 90-minutes.  Ninety minutes!?  Who goes out in weather like this?  I told Sandy that I would walk the mile or so home to get my car and my heavy-duty jumper cables.  She smiled a mixture of appreciation and pity, reminiscent of Katherine Hepburn’s sad smile at Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen as he climbed back into the shallow, swampy, leech-infested water to continue towing the boat. 

 

Bundled in my winter parka, with scarf and bunnet (a taxi-driver type cap with ear flaps down), I half walked and half jogged south along Route 45, careful to step as far as possible off the road as cars bulleted past me, apparently having no doubt that the bundled up pedestrian would manage to get out of their way in time. 

 

The temperature had to be in the low teens, and I chillingly realized I had underestimated the cold.  The wind was in my face.  My cheeks were stinging.  I began to worry about frostbite.  With my nose running, my moustache froze.  I tugged my scarf up to cover my face to my eyes.  My eyeglasses fogged, and the fog froze, limiting my visibility.  I thought of Omar Sharif as Dr. Zhivago trudging his way to Lara, similarly bundled up, falling over in the deep snow of Siberia, almost freezing to death.  But he made it home, and so did I. 

 

I started up my new Nissan Rogue parked outside, turned the heat up high, and entered the garage to get my jumper cables.  They were not to be found.  I searched for 10 minutes until I literally stumbled over a plastic milk crate containing items from my old car, including the cables.  I zipped back to the vet, the Rogue holding the icy road fairly well.  I attached the cables, started up my car, and then Sandy’s.  I gave Sandy, standing warm inside at a window, the thumbs up. 

 

When we got home, I let Sandy’s car run for a short while so that the battery could recharge.  Eventually, I shut off the Honda, opened the door to get out, and the car alarm went off.  I sat back inside, closed the door against the cold, and hit the alarm button on the Honda key.  The alarm silenced.  I opened the door, and the alarm went off again.  This time I shut the door from the outside, hit the button, and the alarm ceased.  Another thing to have a mechanic look at. 

 

As I took off my coat in the house festooned with Christmas wreaths and lights, my eyes fell on the jar of Charlie’s sedatives.  I wondered what his two-pill dose would translate to for a creature seven and a half times his weight.