Let’s not go there.
Canada has a thanksgiving. What are it’s happy rituals?
Some people like a little privacy in what they spend their money on. For example here is something Paypal announced a few weeks ago:
@RTFirefly has your solution to the shopping craziness, @Beckdawrek !
All you have to do is drive to Alexandria, Virginia, to shop!
Easy-peasy!
~VOW
I can count change back. I Suck at math I mean really suck. However, my not so patient mother ( who worked at Meijer Store 1 for decades. She was working when the original store building burned down) laboriously taught me how to do it. Seriously, proper change counting is a bit counter intuitive until you get the hang of it.
Where I work now, we have auto-change droppers. When someone starts digging in their pockets after the change has dropped, I have to totally shift mental gears, as we are always ridiculously busy. I’m always trying to do my spiel, ring everything up, bag if they want one, get food if they want it, get them on their way and move on to the next person etc. etc. Like I mentioned above math is not my friend, not even my frenemy, it is barely a nodding acquaintance. So everything coming to a screeching hault 'cause somebody wants to finesse the change is irritating. I can and do it, but it throws me off my rhythm.
What really bugs me? Are the ones that do this shit to make a show of how dumb the cashier is. Make no mistake many of them do it for this very reason.
Oh, and I went to Walmart today, ( still forgot the dark brown sugar) and it wasn’t bad at all. And I was in a big hurry.
I get you. I’m equally math handicapped.
For some reason I have no trouble with money. I generally have my purchase added in my head with tax before I’m ever checked out.
For a checker to be caught unawares or just messed with. That’s just wrong.
What is wrong with people?
I live a block away from a grocery so made my regular daily trip. The manager pointed out the customers each trying to buy frozen green beans and so creating a wake in the freezer aisle. They could buy them any day of the year - I do for sure.
I think that even for a lot of us who used to routinely pay cash for small transactions, Covid broke us of the habit during that stretch when people thought the virus was being carried on stuff like paper money.
Since then, I’ve noticed that cashiers seem to have to mentally shift gears more to deal with cash payment, they’re ready for you to tap your credit card or Apple Pay or whatever and be on your way, and that very much reinforces the habit of never paying with bills and coins anymore.
I’m the idiot/eternal optimist who tries to pay a $15.67 tab with a $20 bill and 67 cents in coins, and thinks that’s making it easy for the cashier.
My, how quaint. For sure giving them anything except bills only makes it worse nowadays.
Quantity limit signs on holiday specific items at holiday time, and especially on their loss leaders, are something I’ve seen in groc stores every year for the ~50 years I’ve been shopping.
I think you’ve been conditioned a bit by COVID and the current news to see ghosts where they aren’t.
I’m typing this in a crowded hub airport. I see zero masks in the crowd.
I’m sure you have a very good point there.
Ham already is. We’re tired of turkey and do ham on Thanksgiving; our store-brand ham was almost half-price yesterday.
I was at the door of Food Lion this morning about 2 minutes before it opened. Went in with my list, got what I wanted, and back to my car. Two little bags cost over $21, but I’m done. Two days at home to prep with no reason to venture out. Go me!
Update in the interest of honesty. …
Walking down the concourse I did later see a woman wearing a mask. One.
When it was time to board my flight of ~180 people there was one masked couple (which sorta counts as one masking decision) and one masked solo. We’re flying to NYC, rather a dense and chilly place full of diseases. it’ll be interesting to see whether / how public behavior there differs.
Evidently the sample of the traveling public I saw does not see the point in masking for COVID, flu, the common cold, or anything else. I’m not saying they’re smart or stupid. But they are collectively showing what they collectively think.
I was in my local grocery store about 45 minutes ago, parked right in front, got everything on my wife’s list, and came home. Probably only spent 15 minutes in the store, no line at the self-checkout registers, everyone there was pleasant.
Before COVID we would stop at the grocery store at 2 am on our way home from a night out. It was empty and a wonderful experience. Now they close down overnight. Now my gf checks the football schedule and goes when the Steelers game is on TV.
Possible work-around for the future:
I don’t know if it’s common or not, but my grocery store includes a pharmacy, and they will happily ring up a couple of items for you, assuming you’re getting anything pharmacy-ish at the same time. Like, get some vitamins or a bottle of aspirin or even boxes of tissue, and they’ll ring up your cream cheese and bag of bagels at the same time. I’ve never encountered more than two people in line at the pharmacy register.
You will 100% see people wearing masks here in NYC, especially on the subway, though it has become a very small percentage. Depending on where you go, that amount may change, though it is still small. More people will mask at a Broadway show or a movie aimed at an older crowd than in a grocery store or the latest big blockbuster film.
(I still do every time I am indoors with a big crowd.)
See even for me, the math challenged, that is pretty simple. I’m talking about more esoteric change juggling. I can’t think of any specific examples as, hey math challenged. I can do them, and I do more the, “complex,” change, but after the change has auto dropped, and I’m telling them have a good day, looking at the next customer, and they hand me change, it derails my rhythm.
I am going to Northern Virginia for Thanksgiving and to Ford’s Theater in Washington, DC to see a play Sunday night. Not sure how masked up it’ll be there.
Will be doing some thrift store shopping on Friday but that doesn’t usually get too crazy.