Exact change

I hate to sound like an old crotchety woman but WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOUNG PEOPLE TODAY??? Let me start by saying that back in the day, I could ring a pretty efficient register. I could key in items, add tax, note which items were tax free, and here’s the best part; I could figure out how much change the customer was due and count it back to them properly and politely. There were no computerized cash registers to tell us ringers how much money to return and because of that, we could actually figure it out in our heads, make sense of it and count it back to the paying party.

Let’s contrast this with today. Last week I was at a certain Christian hobby store and my bill came to $21.52. I was holding a twenty dollar bill and a five dollar bill. I hadn’t yet handed them to the cashier. She, however, took it upon herself to ring in $25.00. But as I continued to dig around in my wallet, I found a single and .52 cents. I said, “Here you go,” and handed the young lady $26.52. The look on her face was sheer panic. She began to stutter and I feared she might shortly hyper-ventilate.

“Are you okay?” I inquired with serious concern. “I…I… I…already rang it in,” she said.
“Well, that’s okay,” I spoke as if I were coaxing a would-be jumper from a very high ledge. “You just need to give me a five dollar bill and we’re good to go.” Unfortunately, this continued to baffle my young friend. All color had drained from her countenance. “I…can’t do that,” she stammered. “I need to give you the change from the $25 I rang in.”

I thought about explaining that I didn’t really want four dollars and .48 cents shuffling about in my wallet, and that I had actually simplified the equation by supplying her with the extra $1.52. But since there was a long line of religious crafters behind me, I chose to simply give her the $25 dollars and move on with my life. After all, WWJD?

But this kind of event is occurring more and more frequently. Yesterday I stopped in one of my favorite bath stores. I ended up spending $32.25. I happen to have been carrying a $100 bill that I wanted to change into something smaller, so I paid with the bill and a shiny new quarter. Once again, panic ensued. The young gal behind the counter stood there stunned, looking at me as if I had handed her Rubles or Euros or Yen. After what felt like an inordinate amount of time she called for a manager to check the validity of my hundred and asked what she should do with the extra quarter I’d supplied. Luckily the manager, a ripe 30 something, keyed in the precise amount and the register responded that the customer was due the exact sum of $68. The sales girl then grabbed some cash from the drawer in a haphazard manner and dumped a wad of cash into my palm.

Gone are the days of counting back change to a customer so that she knows she is, in fact, receiving the correct amount of cash return. But seriously, how do you know you are getting the appropriate amount of change? I mean, computers do make errors, as do impulsive youth. I carefully counted back my change in front of the young woman, hoping that perhaps I could teach her by example a more appropriate way of delivering change to a paying consumer. She merely looked at me with annoyance for delaying the other customers behind me in line.

Look, I have no problem with the fact that all salespeople appear to be under the age of 15. Likewise, I’m not one of those people who walks down a hospital corridor wondering why all the doctors barely look old enough to drive. I appreciate that we are a young, vital society and that the youth are the future of our great nation. But there really is a need for young people to be able to do basic arithmetic in their heads and if we are to be a capitalist society, people need to understand how to count money, make change and respect the purchasing process.

There, I’ve said it. Now I’m going to sit in my rocker, crank up the phonograph and enjoy turning on and off the lights with my Clapper.

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Shopping sickness

I have to come clean. I have a real problem and I don’t know how to get over it. Some people do drugs. Others are addicted to exercise or prescription painkillers. Some people over-eat or under-eat or find themselves in abusive relationships. Let’s face it. Nobody gets through this life unscathed. “Everyone has a story,” someone once told me. I believe that to be true. And while some stories are epic sagas, others are more like comic-book narratives. Mine, on the other hand, resembles one of those Nordstrom catalogues that show up every few weeks in your snail mail box.

My problem is shopping. Not just “walk into a store, need a new pair of pumps” shopping. I’m talking about obsessive, on-line, “can’t go to sleep until I find whatever obscure item I’ve decidedly set my sights upon” shopping.

A few nights ago, I was up half the night in search of a vintage pair of men’s socks that I wanted to buy my husband for Father’s Day. Another night last week, I roamed through columns of ebay listings for the perfect dog collars for my two dogs. (I’d noticed shortly before bedtime that their collars looked a bit dingy.) Last night I researched mascara until 3am when I finally decided that the bags under my eyes were no match for my lashes, no matter how voluminous, dark and lustrous I could make them.

This is a sickness. I lie there in bed, i-pad in hand, and cannot make myself stop. Why am I doing this? It’s not that I’m spending huge amounts of money we don’t have. I buy piddly little crap like cell phone jacks from China or laundry detergent from Dusseldorf. (I’m really not kidding. It’s great detergent.) But once I start researching, I can’t stop myself. Be it the pinnacle of tooth brush refills or the epitome of hand-dyed wrapping paper, once my mind focuses on some kind of need, I become completely obsessed with researching and purchasing the item in question. I seriously know more about diy table cloth fabric than any respectable person ought to know.

And I know I’m not alone. Because I get HUNDREDS of email ads every five minutes. From “Rue-la-la” to “Beyond the Rack” to “Fab.com,” I could literally spend the next six months of my life trying to clear out my email box and delete every on-line solicitation to buy yet another elegant designer handbag for up to 70% off. No joke, I have 17,000 e-mails. And some of them I have to actually read. But I never get to them because every time I try to wade through the morass of e-mails I get side-tracked by yet another “Living Social” deal or “Groupon” ad.

I tried making a rule that no electronics could be brought into the bedroom. But technically that meant I couldn’t keep my husband’s LED alarm clock and he overslept and missed a few morning patients. He insisted that a blanket anti-electronic ban was unacceptable. I could just try to eliminate anything with the letter “i” but I’m pretty attached to my dog, Maggie (maybe I could change the spelling of her name) and I’d hate to rid myself of the chaise at the end of the bed.

No, there’s no way around this. I have to dig deep and find the willpower within to cut myself off from all electronic media post 9p.m. That’s it. No checking e-mail. No sleepy-time surfing. No “Words with Friends” to help soothe me to sleep. It’s just too dangerous. Clearly I cannot use these media responsibly.

Okay, I admit it. I am powerless over my addiction. Breathe. I am taking a fearless moral inventory of myself. Breathe. And I humbly ask a power greater than myself to remove the electronic clatter that clouds my psyche and keeps me from slumber. Breathe.

Is it okay to just concentrate on three steps instead of all twelve? It’s just that time is limited and they get kind of repetitive after a while. Besides, I only have a few minutes before the Disney necktie auction I’ve been following on ebay ends and I really need to get this Goofy tie for Mark for his birthday.

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Back to school roller derby

Who will be the next School Supply Roller Derby Queen?

Lace up your skates, moms. It’s time to hit the aisles and go for the gold. If you’re fast and tough, you might actually secure that Justice League lunch box and water bottle your kid’s been pining for all year. Show no mercy. It’s back to school time.

God help me I hate school supply shopping. I hate everything associated with school supply shopping. I hate hordes of people fighting over number 2 pencils, I hate trying to find wide-ruled notebook paper amidst piles and piles of college lined loose leaf. I hate having to buy 4 large glue sticks when they always come 3 to a pack. I hate that despite the fact that every school in the world insists on kids bringing ziploc baggies and disinfectant wipes, they never put that stuff with the school supplies and you have to traipse through the entire store with a million other people to get to the cleaning supply and home storage areas before they run out of the items you need to complete your list.

Argh!!!! It’s awful. It was better this year because I took each boy separately. Trying to navigate two supply lists while maneuvering a shopping cart and corralling two young tykes was nearly impossible last year. At least I wised up a bit.

But the whole process is so utterly angst producing. I’m not even sure why. I love shopping, for almost everything. But this is…just…not fun. I spent over $300 for both boys. That sounds like a lot to me. I mean, that doesn’t even include text books or any real type of learning material.

I saw this one woman, who looked equally distraught, and she said that at her school you can pay extra money and they’ll do your school supply shopping for you. Unfortunately, she had flaked and missed the deadline this year. “Rest assured,” she bemoaned, “that wont happen again.” For a moment I wished our school did that.

But then, in some weird masochistic side of my brain, I heard a voice saying, “but you’d miss such a meaningful mom-son experience if you didn’t go school supply shopping each year.” The fact is, given the choice to abdicate all school related shopping excursions, I probably wouldn’t take it. Because even if I tell myself that instead of the crowded Target aisles, we could go to the water park or the movies or somewhere equally fun and carefree, something else would come up and we’d miss that time together and then it would feel just like every other missed moment I feel guilty and forlorn over.

So, I’ll keep body-checking 12 year-olds to get the last package of yellow highlighters and pushing distracted moms’ carts out of the way to retrieve that one Yoda pencil box that my son simply cannot live without. I will do this year after year after year. Because I’m a mom. And that’s just what we do.

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Perception vs. reality

Is it me...or is it...memorex?

I have what’s commonly known as “body dysmorphia.” Well, I don’t know how commonly known it actually is. It’s really called “Body Dysmorphic Disorder.” I looked it up. Here’s what it said, “Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is sometimes referred to as dysmorphic syndrome. It is a psychological disorder in which the affected person is excessively concerned about and preoccupied by a perceived defect in his or her body image.” Does this not apply to everyone?

But wait, there’s more:
“It is estimated that 1–2% of the world’s population meet all the diagnostic criteria for BDD” Is that all? I find that hard to believe!!! Every woman I know over 40 has this. Seriously, I’m not making light of this because I really do have it.

I am and always have been convinced that I am HUGE. I’m not joking. When I look in the mirror, I see a fat woman looking back at me. Now over the years, with a tremendous amount of drugs and counseling, I have come to understand that my perception of myself is not the same as reality. I also understand (although this part is harder for me to believe) that if I surveyed 100 people who knew me, few if any would describe me as portly.

This is a challenging disorder to cope with. Shopping, for instance, is impossible. I spend all this time picking out size 16 capris and extra large tank tops, and then I put them on and think “Wow, I look pretty hot.” Then I get home and my husband is like, “What were you thinking? You look like a small child who just raided her mommy’s closet.”

I know what you’re thinking; Freud could definitely interpret that into some kind of wistful maternal longing based on a lack of nurturing from my childhood. But I’m not gonna go there. Anyway, I usually try to take someone with me when I shop these days. It’s kind of like that great moment in “A Beautiful Mind” when Russel Crowe (who has these visual halucinations) asks one of his students if the man who just approached him to offer him a Nobel prize actually exists.
I’ve tried asking salespeople if the billowy blouse I’m unsure of is actually my size. But they’re so eager to sell anything that I’ve yet to meet someone who answers me honestly.

Over the years my husband has gently nudged me towards developing a more fitted wardrobe. I’ve been afflicted with BDD as long as I can remember. In fact, I recall wearing most of my 6’3” father’s clothing throughout much of high school years. I told everyone it was my ode to Annie Hall. But retrospectively I think I honestly believed those clothes were the only ones that I could squeeze my 5’8” scrawny frame into. It’s actually kind of sad when I think about it.

The other day I was talking to this friend of mine who has personality dysmorphia. She honestly sees herself as reliable, reflective, altruistic and uniquely sensitive. She is, in fact, a thoughtless, self-obsessed flake who spends her life ruminating over inane dramas that truly don’t even exist. I realized that body dysmorphia maybe isn’t all that bad. It’s kind of like that famous saying; “I cried because I had no shoes. Until I met a man who had no feet.” Wow, do you think he really had no feet? Or could he possibly have been suffering from BDD?

In any event, I should probably get a new friend.

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Fried at “Fry’s”

Yesterday my eldest son, Levi, got electrocuted at

No, I don't want FRYs with that!

“Fry’s” Electronics. The irony of that is not wasted on me. It was truly a horrifying event. We sat down in these massage chairs and when they weren’t working, Levi went to check and see if they were plugged in. When he picked up the cord it exploded into flames, knocked him back about three feet and singed his hand badly. It was terrifying. He then became completely hysterical and I tried to comfort him while also barking out orders to nearby nitwit employees who just stood there staring at me.

He is fine, albeit a bit fearful of anything electronic. But the fact remains that this could have been a grave, irreparable tragedy. That’s the part I can’t get beyond. I’m haunted by the “what ifs.” What if the current had been stronger? What if the explosion had caught fire and spread. What if something truly terrible had happened to my son?

It’s funny. When bad things happen, I almost always realize how lucky I am. It’s that Jewish “imagine the worst” thing that guides my thoughts towards the worst possible scenario. Then I’m deeply grateful for whatever minor event has befallen me. But I can’t forget how quickly life can turn — forever. It can leave you shattered, alone, sick, lost, afraid; for no other reason than random chance, and there’s simply nothing you can do to control it.

I stood right next to my son as he innocently picked up a cord, an ordinary event that had an unexpected, extraordinary outcome. A friend of mine told me how her toddler daughter had fallen and broken her arm, twice, as she walked helplessly alongside. I remember countless times when minor accidents occurred under my watch and only through luck and good fortune amounted to only a few cuts and bruises.

It’s all very frightening. I want this realization to make me live more fully, embrace every moment, appreciate all that I have. Instead it makes me want to slip under the covers, barricade my front door, and turn out all the lights in the house like my lame neighbors on Halloween night. I want to keep my family safe, my boys alive and unscathed by life’s darts and daggers.

Today my car was broken into. The window was shattered and an expensive item was stolen. My first reaction? Relief. Thank God no one was in the car. Thank God my husband and kids were safe. Thank God no one was hurt. But maybe I’m too passive. Maybe I ought to be more proactive, see potential bad things around the corners before they appear. Maybe my “thank god it wasn’t worse” attitude is really just a manifestation of fear, helplessness and the reality of how truly ineffective I am in life.

Help, I think I’ve fallen into a philosophical minefield and I can’t get up.

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School supply shopping is now a full-contact sport

Ah...the dreaded back-to-school shopping list

Ah, shopping for school supplies. Is there anything…worse? It is truly one of life’s most horrible experiences. First of all, why do they need so damn much? I mean, honestly, are they really gonna use one pencil a week for the next 36 weeks? That’s a lot of lead. Isn’t that like bad for the environment or something? To add insult to injury, one mom I know told me that she had to individually write her kid’s name on each and every pencil. I thought she was joking. I mean, please. Have we resorted to purchasing pricey designer number 2 pencils nowadays? Who gives a crap if your kid uses the wrong pencil? And the stuff really adds up fast. It was probably wrong to tell my son he could have the Mario Wii game if we netted out at under $100. His subsequent tantrum was rather embarrassing I must admit. After he composed himself he looked at our $160 stash and said, “School costs enough. I think the teachers should just buy all the school supplies themselves and give them to students.”

Of course I used that as a teachable moment to launch into a diatribe about the shattered state of education in the country (and particularly within our own state confines) and shared with him the rather disturbing fact that Nationwide, teachers earn a whopping .88 for every dollar earned by those in “comparable” positions.* This might have gone over my 9-year-old’s head.

But back to the chaos of the school supply aisle. It reminded me of Passover shopping on Devon Avenue at Hungarian when I was a little kid growing up in Chicago. (While this image may only be accessible to a few of you, it is such a perfect analogy that I had to include it.) Only instead of large Jewish women with short, complacent husbands body checking me in the macaroon aisle, here we had hordes of over-privileged children violently grabbing the last few packs of sharpened pencils, staplers and highlighters with absolutely no regard for personal space, safety or courtesy. And their parents were even worse.

One lady literally raced me to the dry-erase pen section after I foolishly pointed out its whereabouts to my dazed son who’d been up and down the aisles three or four times without spotting them. She took the very last package of pens. “Um, excuse me,” I politely announced. “My son was on his way over to get those. I believe you heard me direct him to this section, and then you ran over here before he could get here and took the last package of pens. Don’t you think you’re being a little too competitive?”

“Hey,” she smiled with self-satisfaction, “You snooze, you loose.”

I thought about smacking her upside the head.

But then I decided that her husband was probably a personal injury attorney, (no offense, Barry), and that she’d end up suing me for like 18 million dollars because I somehow managed to puncture her breast implant while attempting to kick her in the teeth. It just…wasn’t worth it.

For a brief psychotic moment I thought about taking both of my children to purchase their school supplies at the same time. But, seeing as I’m organizationally challenged and probably undiagnosed ADHD, the image of myself hopelessly trying to follow two diverse lists, while fighting off insurgent parents and checking off appropriate list items as they landed in my cart was a little too much for me. Instead, I made it a “fun” mommy and me outing for each child individually, complete with a post shopping trip to the local fro yo shop.

While the signature tart, fat free, icy treat (that I insisted in smothering with Heath Bar sprinkles) did help to somewhat lessen the post traumatic stress reaction I was experiencing, truth be told, it barely took the edge off. What I needed was a Ketel One, double Martini, not too dry, just a little dirty if I was to go home and return to the battle field with child number two.

Luckily it was too close to bedtime to play out the second half of this cutthroat educational acquisition competition. We tabled it for the night. But let me tell you, come tomorrow morning, I am gonna be a force to be reckoned with. So if you see me coming down the aisle, accordion folder in hand, please, for the love of God, get the hell out of my way.

*Incidentally, “comparable” positions according to the report by the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center (EPE) includes reporters, insurance underwriters, and even museum curators to name a few. The report also noted that it is, in fact, teaching quality that matters more than anything else in a child’s education, and astutely added that a child’s likelihood of succeeding in life depends greatly on which state he or she is born into since education varies so erratically from state to state.

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If crime doesn’t pay, then honesty should be rewarded!

I am too honest. I really am. I’m the kind of person who corrects the cashier at Safeway when she charges me for cheap, ordinary Gala apples when in fact I’ve purchased exceedingly expensive Jazz apples.

I’ve always been this way. I can’t keep things I find on the sidewalk. I never cheated on a test in my life. And I actually feel compelled to return that extra nickel when the young man at Dunkin Donuts makes the wrong change from my $20. (Well, in my register-ringing teens, our pay got docked for every penny we fell short.)

C'mon TJ's. Give me a break.

But today I feel genuinely ripped off. And it’s all because of my insane honesty. I went to Trader Joe’s. (Yes, I’m obsessed about shopping there. I go there at least 5 times a week. But that’s another issue we can contemplate in the future.) Much to my delight, I remembered to bring in my reusable grocery bags. I normally end up running back to the car to retrieve them just as I’m entering the check-out lane.

As you probably know, Trader Joe’s offers a kind of incentive program for bringing in your own bags. Every time you use your own, you get to fill out a ticket for a chance to win a $25 gift certificate. I’ve been entering this weekly lottery for over a year. But much to my chagrin, I have never won. This seems odd to me. For someone who enters as often as I do, I was fairly certain that I would have been victorious by now. And for some reason, I really want to win this. It has taken me a great deal of energy and effort to consistently remember to bring in those dumb canvas bags, and now I want to be rewarded for it.

When they first started the program, they always gave me a ticket as I checked out. But, over time, they have become a bit chintzy with the tickets. I sometimes go weeks without being given one. I know that I could ask for one. But I’m kind of embarrassed about it. I don’t want to seem too needy or competitive. So I generally smile a little less brightly and just head out to the car disappointedly with my cadre of environmentally protective reusable bags.

But today, the gentleman ringing me up actually remembered to give me a ticket to fill out for the auction. My face lit up. I smiled and murmured some hopeful remark about it perhaps finally being my time for the big win. He affirmed my wishful philosophy by reminding me that somebody has to win. Why couldn’t it be me?

I bagged my groceries as he continued to ring up the items in my cart. That’s when I saw it. There was a second blank ticket just barely visible underneath a stack of brown paper bags. “OMG,” I thought. “I could fill that out too and then I’d for sure end up winning.” I unobtrusively palmed the extra ticket and secretly slid it over to me. When the cashier was distracted, I picked it up. (I had already dropped the first one in the little tin at the front door.)

We talked cheerfully and he helped me bag the remainder of my groceries. “Just fill it out and drop it in the tin,” I said to myself. But I couldn’t do it. What if I did actually win and it was under this kind of false pretense? How could I live with myself?

After I was bagged and payed for, I held up the bonus ticket and announced, “Hey, here’s an extra one. I just found it lying up here.” “Thanks,” he said as he collected the still blank ticket. And that was it. He didn’t thank me for my honesty. He didn’t say, “Listen, just go ahead and fill this one in too. It’ll give you better odds for winning this week.” Nothing like that. He just thanked me and stuck the ticket in the register.

I am now certain that that ticket was the winning ticket. I deserved that ticket. I bet I enter this drawing more often than anyone else in the valley. How come I never win? That’s just weird. I’m starting to think it’s all a ruse. Maybe they don’t actually pick a winner every week. Maybe they do it like once every four months or something. Whatever they’re doing, they are pissing me off and I’m one of their best customers.

If Trader Joe’s is going to reward people for protecting the environment, you’d think they’d also want to positively reenforce the kind of honesty I displayed this morning. I mean, being green is one thing. But without good, old-fashioned honesty, this planet is seriously doomed.