Day 96: Shoppers Beware of Packaged Produce

My Project: 365 Creative Writing Prompts

Day 96: Shoppers Beware of Packaged Produce

Every Saturday morning, I walk past a supermarket. Most of the time I don’t have money or any other means of payment on me, so I just look and keep walking. Well, strictly speaking, I don’t keep walking, I stop and admire all the fruit and veggies that are on display in outside bins and crates. All at unbelievable prices.

Last Saturday I came prepared. I had my debit card with me and I was going to do some serious fruit and veggie shopping. As I walked along I picked up a tray of nine neatly wrapped tomatoes, a tray of kiwis, a tray of Brussels sprouts, a box of strawberries, a bunch of bananas, a bag of mandarins, a bunch of leeks, and a bag of green beans.

Back home I stuffed everything in the fridge and felt every so pleased with my shopping. That good feeling didn’t last long. When dinner time came around and I wanted to prepare a tomato salad, I noticed that every single one of the nine wrapped tomatoes were rotten. Whoever had packaged the tomatoes had placed the rotten spot face down and once packaged nobody would be the wiser. The same with the Brussels sprouts and the kiwis, some of them were in good condition, but the rotten ones were strategically placed so no one would notice.

I feared the worst as I reached for the mandarins and the strawberries, would it be the same? Yep, as I rolled the tiny fruits out of their container most of them showed black marks covered with grey fuzz.

The first time I wanted to unwrap a banana I got another bad surprise there. The first one was rotten, so was the second and the third. I found it unbelievable. On the outside, the bananas looked perfectly normal, but on the inside the fruit was black.

Now I understood why the fruit and veggies had been packaged … once wrapped in cellophane, nobody could check the condition of the produce. As for the price … yeah, it was cheap, but who wants rotten produce? Now I had to go to my regular supermarket and buy everything again. So, what started out as cheap actually turned out to be expensive.

For me, it’s a lesson learned. Even though my regular supermarket charges considerably more for their goods, I’m willing to pay those extra dollars.

https://www.canadahelps.org/en/pages/toronto-cat-rescue-bowl-a-thon-9/

Day 67: Christmas Shopping

My Project: 365 Creative Writing Prompts

Day 67: Christmas Shopping

I met one of my neighbors yesterday who bitterly complained ...

How I wish that there was indeed such a man as Father Christmas. Someone who would bring the perfect presents to our house in exchange for some milk and cookies. Gosh, I would gladly make him coffee and a sandwich or even cook him dinner for saving me a trip to the mall.

Every year I suggest that instead of giving presents at Christmas, we move exchanging presents to New Years. I mean, what is the big deal? So, we wait a week, so what?  Is one week going to kill us? And think of all the benefits: no crowds; reduced prices; plenty of items to chose from; and no Christmas music.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas carols as much as the next person, but after hearing ‘Jingle Bells’ and ‘Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer’ ten or fifteen times, those jingle bells start to give me a headache!  Then I wonder why nobody gets Rudolph inside so he can warm his nose. 

One year, in the third week of December I went in search of presents. And, just like other years, it was a battle and a struggle. The otherwise relatively quiet mall was packed with people. Some were milling around, not quite knowing where to go, while others were purposefully striding, knowing exactly what to get, where to go, and loosing no time getting there. I got a bump here, a shove there and must have heard “I’m sorry”, “Excuse me”, and “Pardon me” at least fifteen times. I had to ask myself, was this shopping or polite wrestling?

In good time, I found what I was looking for and was quickly weighed down by boxes and rolls of wrapping paper. I became a bit more sympathetic towards the pushers and the shovers as I was now one of them, occasionally uttering the words “I’m sorry”, “Excuse me” and “Pardon me.”

I dragged more than I carried my purchases in large plastic bags and heavy cardboard boxes across the mall, all the while perspiring in my heavy winter coat. My feet were killing me; my back was in urgent need of a soft comfy chair, my legs agreed with my back and to make matters worse I was getting hungry.  What might people think if they thought they heard a loud rumbling noise?

By the time I got home, my bank account and I felt the same way --- exhausted.

Still, mall shopping is a vast improvement over street shopping. Back then it was so cold Santa could have tagged me to replace Rudolph the Red Nosed reindeer within the first five minutes. The wind tugged at my coat and scarf as I trudged through inches of snow. Fun it was not, and it got even worse when I was laden with a few packages. I slipped and I skidded, and quite a few times I ultimately ended up on my not well padded behind!

At least now, when I shop in a mall, I keep my balance and my dignity. It’s even worth listening to Alvin and the Chipmunks singing ‘Jingle Bells’.

www.connymanero.weebly.com

Day 62: Online Christmas Shopping

My Project: 365 Creative Writing Prompts

Day 62: Online Christmas Shopping

For the first time ever, I did all my Christmas shopping online. Other years I went to the mall and dragged myself from one end to another looking for gifts for my son. Usually, I know what he needs or can guess what he wants, so it’s merely a question of finding these things.

This year, however, things were different. With a pinched sciatica nerve, I couldn’t go to the mall. My back is a lot better than what it was almost four weeks ago, but I still can only stay on my feet for five or ten minutes at a time. So, I had to do my Christmas shopping online.

The trouble with online shopping though is that you have to know what you want. In a mall, you can walk around and look at various things, but online it’s more complicated. So, I started by opening Amazon where I typed in the search bar ‘gifts for men’. The result of my search was of no use to me. So I tried a more direct approach ... I asked my son to give me a list of things he would like.

While that made shopping a lot easier, now I was faced with another problem ... the shipping costs. For instance, I looked at an item that cost $20 but the shipping and handling costs were $23. Another item was priced $54 and the shipping and handling costs were $40.

Then I noticed that Amazon offered a service called Prime, with which feature shipping and handling would be free. Not every item was included in this free shipping list, but millions were. They offered a free 31 days trial, so I took them up on it.

Now that I was an Amazon Prime member I repeated my search for my son’s gifts. Gift #1 ... free shipping, gift #2 ... free shipping, gift #3 ... free shipping, I was suddenly in shopping heaven and found everything he wanted without having to pay one cent on shipping costs.

Now the question was, would the gifts arrive on time? Some were estimated to arrive this week, some next week, some in the third week of December. Well, that was cutting it a bit close but what the heck, if something arrived a little late, so what.

So that’s it, all my shopping is done. I’ve never been a big fan of shopping online, but I’ve changed my tune now. No more braving the cold. No more trudging through snow and slipping on patches of ice. No more crisscrossing the mall and putting up with loads of shoppers, standing in line to pay and then laden with heavy packages dragging myself home. This year I installed myself in an armchair, put my feet up and clicked my way through Amazon.

www.connymanero.weebly.com

Black Friday

Intrepid souls all over north America, and perhaps elsewhere too, are whipping out their credit cards and heading to the stores for Black Friday bargains.

Others, who prefer to do their shopping online, fire up their computers and prepare for a day of Internet surfing, looking for deals.

I won’t be doing either.

It started out so innocently. I had noticed a red swelling on my leg (where the leg meets the tummy) on Monday. I assumed it was some sort of an insect bite and that it would go away in due time.

This was not the case. If anything the swelling got bigger and became rather painful. So painful in fact that I had to cut my underwear as the elasticized material was too tight around the leg where the swelling was.

Yesterday, I decided I couldn’t wait any longer. Not only had the swelling grown from the size of a blueberry to a cherry, I couldn’t keep cutting my underwear.

The doctor diagnosed the red swelling as a boil, a giant boil. He suggested antibiotics or opening the boil to drain the blood and pus. He was going to give the affected area a local anesthetic, but he said and I quote “I’m not gonna sugarcoat it, it’s gonna hurt.”

He was right. When the needle entered the skin it was just a tiny pinprick, but as soon as he started injecting the freezing liquid it felt like the boil caught fire.

The surgery itself was painless, although more complicated than the doctor had anticipated. He had to cut three times. Eventually, he had to give up because he said he couldn’t cut any deeper because he might hit an artery. 

He said that by Sunday the boil should be better, if not I will have to take antibiotics (which I rather not). He advised me to apply warm compresses every two to three hours and stay off my feet.

“So no Black Friday shopping,” I asked him.

“Better not,” he said, “put up your feet and rest.”

This ruined my plans for early Christmas shopping. I was gonna go to the mall, and even though dealing with a crowd of shoppers would be hell, I was prepared to put up with it for the sake of finding some bargains.

If I couldn’t walk the stores, I figured I might as well join the Internet shoppers and go online. Not that that worked out well. Not only did I get for all selected items the message “May arrive after Christmas”, the shipping and handling charges were outrages.

I was about to give up when I found an email in my inbox that a particular website offered 75% off on over 10,000 items. I clicked to check it out, only to be disappointed again. 

Items that were $120 were now $115, items that $45 were now $43, items that were $14 were now $12. Where was the 75% off?

So I gave up and my Christmas shopping will have to wait until December. With any luck, the stores in the mall will have Christmas specials. And yes, dragging my purchases home won’t be easy, but it will be cheaper than the shipping charges.

www.connymanero.weebly.com

I'm baaaaaaack !

Happy New Year to all my readers. I wish you all a pleasant, healthy and fulfilling year.

Did you think I lost interest in my blog? Far from it. I am aware that my last entry dates back to November 2015, but in my defense … I have been very busy writing guides for eBay.

Some of the guides I produced are:

Best tile for shower walls

http://www.ebay.com/gds/Best-Tile-for-Shower-Walls-/10000000206370563/g.html

Best outdoor window cleaners

http://www.ebay.com/gds/Best-Outdoor-Window-Cleaners-/10000000206327831/g.html

Best ice cleats

http://www.ebay.com/gds/Best-Ice-Cleats-/10000000206302225/g.html

These guides are not to be underestimated. There’s extensive research involved, writing the guide, looking for suitable images to accompany the various paragraphs, adding links to make a shopping experience easier, and publishing the guide.

In future, I will share more of these guides as they become available as they might be helpful to some people. I will write the introduction, provide the link and then it’s up to you to click the link, be taken to eBay and hopefully learn something new or be guided in your shopping.

Do men and women shop differently?

I noticed an image on Facebook the other day that compares how men vs. women shop.

According to the image, when a man needs something from the Gap, he heads straight over there, makes his purchase and returns home. It takes him all of 6 minutes and $33.

When a woman needs something from the Gap, she traipses all over the mall, it takes her 3 hours and 26 minutes and she spends $876.

In case you’re wondering who made this comparison … a man, there’s no doubt about it. A man who doesn’t know anything about shopping I might add.

Have you ever been to the Gap? If you have, you’ll know that the Gap isn’t exactly cheap and finding men’s pants at $33 is highly unlikely.

As for the whole trip taking 6 minutes … I can only laugh at that. Again, have you been to a mall lately? There are hundreds of people who walk at a snail pace, they stop on a dime, and those with prams seem to make it their business to be in your way as much as possible. If a man can get to the Gap in 6 minutes … he must be able to fly.

If it takes a woman 3,5 hours to get to the Gap, you can bet on it that she shops for more than her husband’s pants. Chances are he’ll need shirts and ties, sweaters if it’s winter, golf shirts if it’s summer, shower gel, razor blades, aftershave, and who know what else.

If there’s a social gathering on her agenda, she’ll shop for a suitable outfit for herself, along with accessories and makeup. Being a smart woman, she won’t buy at the first store she enters. She’ll have a look around, try on different outfits, then go to two or three other stores and compare prices.

As a caring mother, she’ll pick something up for the kids too. After all, if dad gets new pants and other things, and she gets a new outfit and accessories, it’s only fair that the kids get something too.

While shopping, she’ll probably remember a few household items. Milk, bread, juice, bathroom items, laundry detergent, cat/dog food, etc.

After 3,5 hours of shopping, her feet are burning, her legs feel like lead, her back is breaking, and her throat is parched. She no longer walks, but staggers, laden with bags and bags of shopping.

Back home her husband shows her the imagine of a male and a female’s ways of shopping … 6 minutes vs. 3,5 hours. Absentminded she glances at the image and asks …

“Did you get the wine for the party, the steaks for the barbeque, and the screws to fix the bench?”

No, he didn’t get any of that. He went shopping for his pants and forgot about all the rest.

Please visit me at

www.connymanero.weebly.com

On the war path

I did it! I finally did it! I threw caution to the wind today and approached a man.

It happened during lunchtime. I had installed myself with my book and my cup of tea in one of the deep armchairs at Timothy’s coffee shop when suddenly ... I heard someone sniffing. A loud, truly disgusting sniff.
I looked around. Who was it?

Was it one of the Asian youngsters at the next table on my right? No, they were too busy talking. Then again, some people can talk and sniff at the same time.

Was it the tourist at the next table on my left? In his jeans and checkered shirt he looked like the type that couldn’t be bothered to blow his nose.

Was it the distinguishing looking gentleman two tables down? No, surely not. He was impeccable dressed, sporting an expensive looking watch and was reading a hardcover book on finance. Surely he could afford a handkerchief and wouldn’t be so rude as to pull up his nose.

Was it the lady by the counter? She had just ordered a cup of coffee and a muffin. With a handbag clutched under her right arm and both hands full she didn’t exactly have a hand to spare to blow her nose. Was she the sniffer?

As she passed me I heard the disgusting sniff again. Was it her? No, definitely not, the sniff had come from further away.
For the next few seconds I was on high alert, looking and listening at the same time. At the next sniff, a double sniff it was, I identified the sniffer ... the distinguished looking gentleman.

I couldn’t believe it. He looked so perfect, from his impeccable haircut, down to his beautifully tailored suit and his polished leather shoes. How could he be so ... so ... sloppy not to carry a handkerchief or at least some paper tissues!

I sat there, fuming, steam practically coming out of my ears. Was I gonna have to put up with this ear torture for the next hour? Was my hour of quiet reading gonna be ruined by this bozo? No, it was not. I was gonna say something. I was gonna do something. But what? I didn’t exactly want to cause a scene or embarrass him (and me in the process).

At the next sniff I threw caution to the wind, grabbed one of my travel pack tissues, got up and walked over to his table. My heart was hammering in my chest and my mouth was badly in need of a swig of tea. What if he said ‘I don’t need a tissue’ or ‘Who do you think you are approaching me?’ or anything to that effect.

Having arrived at his table I deposited the tissue next to his coffee and said “Perhaps you would like one of these”. I was perfectly polite, I didn’t look at him and I immediately walked away.

He didn’t say anything, but by the time I got back to my table he was blowing his nose. No more sniffing. Aaaah, peace and quiet at last.

Let’s hope that Mr. Distinguished learned his lesson and will carry some tissues from now on.
Me, I was ever so proud of myself, I had done it, I had finally done it. I had not put up with the sniffing and done something about it. Will I do it again? You bet, from now on if anyone in my vicinity starts sniffing they’re gonna get it ... a tissue that is.

It might be a good idea to buy stocks in Kleenex as there are a lot of sniffers in and around Toronto.

Halloween shopping

Nearly twelve years we’ve been in Canada and for the first time we’re gonna decorate for Halloween. Previous years we may have hung a spooky little something on the front door, or placed a little pumpkin on the coffee table, but that was pretty much it.

Being from Europe we don’t actually celebrate Halloween. In Belgium we observe All Saints on November first and All Souls on November second by way of a trip to the cemetery. No, not to scare the living daylights out of visiting mourners, to place flowers on loved one’s’ graves. A beautiful sight it is too, when the dull cemetery is transformed into a sea of flowers. Mostly white, yellow or purple chrysanthemums .

But not this year, this year we’re throwing our heart and soul into decorating. In preparation for the big day, or big night, we did a little shopping. Most stores were a bit of a disappointment though. Other than a few pumpkins, cauldrons and face masks they didn’t stock any Halloween decorations. So we went to the one store where I thought we might have more luck ... the dollar store.

They usually go all out with their Christmas and Easter decorations, so I figured they would stock an abundance of Halloween decorations too. And I was right, the dollar store held aisles and aisles of decorations: crows, rats, cats, bats, spiders, jack o lanterns, bloody severed limbs, gravestones, etc. etc. etc.
Short of the bloody limbs and the spiders, we got a bit of everything. We walked out of that store with two big bags to the value of $46, so you can imagine.

Part of the decorations will be for home and part will be for our work cubicles.  We can do more decorating at work than we can at home because at work we don’t have five cats roaming around, taking an interest in anything and everything. I mean, we could place some decorations on top of cabinets and tables at home, but how long would they remain standing? Not long, I can tell you that. Birds, rats and cats would be knocked off their socks; bats would take a flying leap; and as for graveyard stones and jack o lanterns ... let’s just say they wouldn’t live long.

So we’ll be doing some decorating tomorrow and the rest will be taken to work. It’s a safer environment for the scary bits there.

Never send a man to do a woman’s job.

Since we seem to be in for the long run without A/C, I thought it might be a good idea to get me some shorts. So I asked my son, Dieter, to swing by the mall on his way home from work and pick some up.

When he came home I inspected his purchases and ... well, there was a problem.

The first pair of shorts I pulled out of the bag were white and looked rather suspiciously like the boxer shorts my dad wears. But okay, I wasn’t going to wear them outside, so I guessed they would be okay. As long as they were cool, that was the main point.

The second pair of shorts though was unacceptable. They looked nice enough in color and cut, but .... they were a size 14.
I’m a size 7.

“They were in the size 7 section,” Dieter said when I pointed out the size difference.
“Didn’t you look at the label inside the actual shorts?” I asked him.
Apparently not.

Never one to just give up, I took the size 14 shorts to my bedroom and tried them on. I pulled them up, closed the button, did up the zip and ... they fell right to the floor.

For any further purchases I think I’ll brave the heat and do my own shopping.