Overheard at Loblaw's

My wife stopped into Loblaw's to pick up a couple of things on a busy Saturday, and saw an elderly lady getting out of her car in the parking lot. The woman dropped a couple of items, including a cane, but before my wife can offer assistance another woman stepped in to help.

Once the senior was back under control, seemingly quite unsteady and frail, the younger woman comments on the bright orange bow that is tied to the older woman's cane. "Oh, is that so it doesn't get mixed up with other people's canes?" she asked. "No," the elderly woman replied, "it's so that I can see it."

Anyone catch that license plate?

Have Patience, Will Travel

Plane over Maho Beach, St. Martin © Shutterbug

There is no time a southern escape is more required or more appreciated by a Torontonian than in February. The mercury has been below zero for weeks on end, and six-foot icicles are hanging from our eaves. They are also falling from the eaves, and hit my honey in the back of the head as she tried to clear a path to our recycling bins. Time to get away.

For the first time in recent memory, our flight was at a decent hour (11 a.m.), meaning we had the luxury of sleeping in until 6 a.m. before getting ourselves ready and taking the dogs to their home away from home–where they take off at a full gallop once released with nary a look back at us. Everything went according to plan, and the Park 'N Fly shuttle at the airport picked us up in five minutes. Thank God, because despite layering our summer clothing, February is simply too damn cold to bear for long without a parka. The speedy transfer was also appreciated because the couple waiting at the shelter with us were both smoking their brains out, and blocking the doorway with their bags. Yuck.

Our seats were towards the back of our Air Canada flight, a newer 767 plane with the first-class section set up with individual futuristic pods. Pod people. I wonder if I'll ever experience what it feels like to sit in that section? I was just thrilled we were not on a charter for a change. Air Canada feels cleaner, roomier, and just more…well, dare I say Canadian?

The plane had a couple of technical issues–a panel above me leaking condensation in a dirty stream upon takeoff, and an entertainment system that kept crapping out and requiring a reboot. We had to go through the painful onscreen menu several times, sit through mandatory advertising clips, start the show…only to have the screen go blank and start all over again. I don't know that this is such a great improvement over the "old days" when we just brought a book. That was my solution, as the passengers groaned.

Several minutes into the flight we became hyper-aware of the couple sitting across the aisle from us, as did pretty much everyone else. Their every thought was voiced at top volume. "JOHN IS 26 AND SHE'S 22. DO YOU KNOW THAT A GENERATION AGO THEY'D ALREADY BE MARRIED WITH A COUPLA KIDS?" I tried to ignore them and focus on my book. The wife took out a crossword puzzle book. "WHAT'S THIS WORD HERE? SEE IT HAS TWO Ts, BUT I CAN'T GET THE REST. LOOK AT 81 DOWN. 81 DOWN. DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT IS?"

The husband was even worse. "I DON'T KNOW 81, BUT I SEE 42 ACROSS. IT'S "ARRIVE". TO GET THERE IS TO ARRIVE." Then he leaned over the aisle to peer across us at the view out the window, and proceeded to describe the scene in excruciating detail to his wife. She mentioned she was hungry, so they proceeded to discuss food options. This brought about a more spirited conversation about food in general, both their likes and dislikes, at which point I decided to put on my noise-cancelling headphones, even though the in-flight system was not working. I caught the eye of the man sitting in the row behind them, who was shaking his head and mouthing the words "oh my God" to me. At that moment, the husband let loose an explosive burst of laughter that startled the wife of the man behind them, who was trying in vain to sleep. Her eyes flew open and met mine, at which point all three of us rolled our eyes and muttered "holy shit".

We lasted half an hour. By this time none of us were making any attempt to hide our irritation, and my wife had started to passive-aggressively mimic some of the couple's louder conversation–but they remained painfully oblivious. People on the far side of the plane were looking at each other incredulously as the chatter continued, and I just couldn't take it any longer. I tapped the man on the shoulder and said, "Excuse me, I don't know if you realize this, but the people around you can't focus on anything but what you are saying. Would you mind keeping it down a bit?" To my surprise he seemed embarrassed, nodded and said, "Ok, sure." And that was it for the rest of the flight! That never happens!

The food/beverage carts took well over an hour to reach us at the rear of the plane, and of course the bulk of items available for purchase were sold out. This turned out to be a blessing, because my sister was seated a few rows ahead and ate what we would have ordered - and was sick for the rest of the day. We ordered the one and only selection available, which was a roast beef sandwich for each of us. The older flight attendant with close-cropped grey hair who had previously seemed rather unfriendly suddenly seemed quite apologetic. She said she would only charge us for one sandwich and would comp us some wine as well, saying with a smile, "It's the least I can do." My lovely wife's intermittent gaydar kicked in, and leaned towards me to whisper, "Membership has its privileges."

Before we knew it, we were there.

Starbucks Purgatory

Starbucks cup  © Shutterbug

It never ceases to amaze me that people whose sole job it is to make coffee and provide customer service are so often capable of doing neither.

I try to avoid the Starbucks located nearest to my house as much as possible, because it appears to be staffed entirely by idiots. Today I had no choice but to get my coffee there, since it would have been beyond the scope of my lunch hour to get to the location slightly further away with better service.

Throwing caution to the wind, my wife and I opened the door to find no lineup at the counter. Feeling encouraged, we approached the young girl at the cash wearing the friendly enough smile, and I carefully spoke our order. I try to speak slowly and clearly so as not to be one of those insufferable yuppie types who rattle off their complex orders at top speed.

"I'll have one decaf, triple tall, nonfat latté please," I said, pausing in between each word. I waited as she wrote the order on the cup, then added when she looked up again, "and one decaf grande nonfat latté". She grabbed a second cup, began to write on it, then picked the first cup up again. She looked at the cups, looked at me with a confused expression, and asked with a heavy accent "Ahh….tall nonfat latté?" I repeated the first order, whereupon she nodded vigorously and wrote more things on the cup. Then I noticed the second cup she'd grabbed was the same tall size, so I pointed to it and said, "That one is supposed to be a grande." Again the look of confusion as she held both tall cups in the air, then she shook her head and began crossing things off the first cup. I started to repeat the order for the third time, at which point she said, "Ohh, two grande, two grande," and reached for new cups. I decided I was not going to be able to complete my transaction. "Never mind, I can't deal with this today," I said, and we walked out coffee-less.

How is it possible that this is our experience each and every time we frequent this location, regardless of who serves us? I'd complain to the "manager", but he is often there, busy chatting on his cell phone while his staff gets weeded.

The best experience in that particular store happened a little while ago, when I found myself in line behind a distracted mother with a young boy about 3. She was so busy trying to select an item from the bakery case that she hadn't noticed her son wander over to the milk station and actually climb on top of the counter. Next thing you know, he is STANDING on top of the counter - you know, where people put their FOOD and DRINKS - and looking pretty unsteady on his feet. Worried for his safety but also appalled at the behaviour, I tapped the mother on the shoulder and said, "Excuse me, your boy has gotten up on the counter over there." She looked over at her son, then back at me, and replied with obvious pride, "I know, he's just so ATHLETIC!"…and turned back to the cashier. I'm still speechless.

But I digress. Today's lunch hour ran into overtime as we rushed to the other location after the service fail above. The service was much better, and we returned to our car with coffees in hand. We'd taken our two dogs with us just to give them a change of scenery, and when we returned to the car we found our labrador retriever had jumped in to the front seat as usual. She slunk to the back seat when told, and we drove home making conversation and jokes to one another. Right as my lovely wife made a raunchy joke, my eye caught sight of my cell phone, which was sitting on the console between us. On the screen was my mother-in-law's phone number, and a clock counting the elapsed time of the current call. It took a moment for the situation to sink in…the dog had speed-dialed my mother-in-law's phone number during her foray to the front seat, and there was now a five-minute recording of our conversation on my mother-in-law's answering machine.

And we think we're ready to have kids…

Gotcha!  © Shutterbug