Idle Thoughts and Other Comments
Random ramblings from a curmudgeon spanning two millenia.
I think I may have mentioned before that I am not a morning person. As you can see on my t-shirt design pictured below, my daily prescription is coffee in the morning to get started and bourbon in the evening to relax. As a result I have no problem-solving skills until around 10:30 AM. So when I was faced first thing in the morning with a clogged needle on my indispensable coffee dispenser, I was devastated. […]
Being sometimes a little over-analytical I’ve noticed how many things in life can be broken down into math equations. This came to me as I was sipping my coffee on a beautiful summer morning last Saturday, trying to decide what really needed to get done that day. I didn’t feel like doing much. Actually I had absolutely no desire to do anything. I knew Snowball would ask later for a reason why nothing was getting done, so I came up with a simple equation for motivation. Too bad she wouldn’t care about the equation and just tell me to get off my butt. […]
You know how you always remember where you were when a life-changing event happens? I vividly remember the circumstances of my first taste of coffee. It was awful. I was about ten. It was a cold Saturday morning in March and my parents and I were waiting in line outside the junior high to sign me up for swimming lessons the next summer. They must have been less worried about stunting my growth than my freezing to death when they handed me a steaming cup freshly poured out of the Thermos. The bitter taste on my blistered tongue made me wonder if “a mother’s love” was an oxymoron.
[…]I was running errands today. First stop was the grocery store. After picking up my milk and cookies, I got in the checkout line. The checker was this incredibly beautiful, young blond girl.
She was totaling up groceries for a customer ahead of me who was wearing (in my mind) a ridiculous cowboy hat and obviously flirting with her. Well, she was having nothing of it. She went about her business barely even looking the man in eye.
When my order came up, she again barely looked up from her register and made no small talk. In keeping with the mood I said barely more than answering whether I wanted paper or plastic.
I then realized she probably lives in constant exasperation regarding the men that try to flirt or even just get a smile out of her. It must be a strange kind of curse being attractive because it brings constant attention that a person doesn’t want. As a defense mechanism they learn to ignore people even who are just trying to be friendly. I wonder if this makes it even more difficult to develop your own friendly personality.
Now, contrast this with the barista I encountered during my later stop at the coffee shop. She was an attractive brunette, only slightly above average. While I waited for my order, we not only discussed the hot weather but how it affected the shop’s sales. And I gave her a good tip.
Maybe grocery checkout folks should work for tips too. It’s a thought.