An Unusual Day

It started last night.  I had been struggling to adjust to the 1.25" towing attachment on the new Subaru.  The hitch pin from a local store was too short, I had to use force, had an traier ball for a 2" hitch,  finally bought some parts on Amazon.  Yadda, yadda, yadda. 

I discovered it was simpler than it seemed and I asked Amazon if I could return some.  They said "OK", offerred me a printable return label.  Good, thank you...  But I noticed returns were free at some "Kohl" department stores.  IF I returned it today! 

So there I was playing Civ 2 (downloadable/playable to a Mac only from some Russian site (OMG!) through some iffy "portal kit").  Well, I have "best" antivirus/firewall stuff and made sure it was "up-to-date".  I checked to make sure nothing funny was going on on the Mac.  And I will offload the app to a stand-alone later today.  That was 6 am.  So I decided to stay up at a discussion board until I could do early errands.

The Kohl's store opened at 10 am.  I had things to buy at Walmart which opened at 9 am, and grocery shopping to do.

Went to Walmart and found most of the things I wanted (kitty litter, cheap store brand stuff, and "on sale" brand name items.   Got back home and put it away.

Went straight to the nearest Kohl's store.  Never been there before (and wn't be returning (their prices are way too high).  But I was relieved to see a "Amazon Returns Accepted Here" sign on the door.  Wrong door of course.  I had to haul the box of heavy metal around to the side door downhill and over a rock bed... 

On the other hand, the return was a breeze.  It was so easy, I was almost suspicious.  But they gave me a printed confirmation and a 25% purchase coupon for "today only".  Even that left the prices too high.  Hey, I'm selectively cheap.  Some things are worth spending money on, some aren't.

So I had the cheap stuff bought at Walmart put away at home, and the Amazon return done.  And I realized I was going to pass my favorite grocery store (Safeway, great produce selection).  And (not coincidentally) I had my spreadsheet grocery list in my wallet (I'll show a link to that soon but it needs updating).

So I stopped and bought groceries.  Told the produce manager their egg roll wrappers were junk.  Well, their old brand was great.  A dusting of cornstarch between each wrapper and and rolled up nicely (I like to make shrimp eggrolls sometimes) and the new brand (Wing Hing or something like that) was all crumbly and impossible to roll.

He promised to look into it (yeah, right).  I often have to help the produce guys.  Seriously, they can barely tell one apple from another.  I'm not in the "oh damn, here he comes again" reaction yet, but they do notice when I point out the labels are wrong and they are selling "Red Delicious" as "Staymans".  And I try not to bother them often. 


I smile to myself when the sales clerks ask if a head lettuce is "cabbage" or beets are "radishes.  I shouldn't because it means that they aren't familiar with fresh veggies in their own lives.  OK, come to think about it, let's say I'm more sad than smiley... 


Pushing my cart to the car, I noticed a woman poking around at the hood-up engine and mostly looking at the battery.  I put my bags in the car.


An older guy does not approach a strange woman carelessly.  There is no telling what the reaction might be.  But I went back and asked if she needed a batterry jump.  She did.  I could tell she was hesitant about a stranger asking for help.



I just recently bought a new car.  And it was partly because the battery in the 2005 Toyota wouldn't recharge well.  The dealership couldn't find the problem.  They said the batterry seemed fine and the charging system checked out OK. 

So I bought a "batterry-minder" to keep it charged in the garage, but I never was sure it would start again during errands.  So I bought a portable power-pack for emergencies.  *I* never actually needed it, but it came in handy today.    It is "the mother of all rechargeable batterries". 



In spite of having a new car, I kept it in the car.  There's room for it, and "you never know".  So I carried it to the woman's car (and noticed a scared little girl inside).  The woman was probaly afraid I would ask for money.  Nah, I'm the Boy Scout type.  Hooked up the clamps, told her to start the car, everything worked.  I told her to make sure to drive the car at least 20 minutes to recharge the battery (and maybe have it checked by a professional).  Batteries do fail.  And I wished her a good day and left.




I've gotten help from strangers before.  My first personally-purchased car once died in the dead of night in a bitterly freezing 1980 Winter on a major highway.  It was SO COLD, my roommate and I were exchanging the one good coat every 5 minutes to stay SLIGHTLY warm.  The ONE person who stopped to ask if I needed help was a Reagan conventioneer.  He asked who I supported and I said "Carter".  He smiled and not only called AAA to tow my car to a repair shop, but drove us home (way out of his way).  Good people do good things. 

Remembering that, I try to pass it on.  I could have just driven home from the Safeway store.  But how hard is it to help another?  We are all of us in this world together fighting off the cold and sadness.



So today, I was my 16 year old Boy Scout again, and did my good deed for the day.  And I thank the opportunity more than the deed...  The deed was fine, the opportunity was priceless.