Post #30. In Which I Learn a Lesson

I know, dear reader, that you’re feeling sorry for my sad little life, where I apparently spend all my time at the grocery store, and sometimes it seems like that to me, too. But, that’s where so many interesting things happen.

Saturday morning, I decided to go grocery shopping. The milk was going to expire on Sunday, and that really cold weather was on the way, and the temps for Sunday and Monday were going to be pretty low, for us at least, and the wind was going to be blowing, which makes even a nice day muuuuch colder than the thermometer says. I ended up not leaving the house until mid-morning, then went by the library to pick up a couple of books, and finally to HEB, where I wondered why ever would people choose to grocery shop on a Saturday morning if they could go some other time. So many folks can only shop on Saturdays, and here I was, in their way, when I could easily have come a different day.

But, there you go, we were all there together. And really it wasn’t horrible.There were lots of people but carts where flowing easily and fluidly from aisle to aisle, and there weren’t too many of the people who leave their cart on one side of an aisle and step to the other side of the aisle to ponder what kind of bean, vegetable, cereal, salad dressing, whatever, to choose, thereby blocking BOTH sides of the aisle. Bless their hearts. And, the lines at the checkout weren’t very long and the carts of those checking out weren’t full to overflowing.

I got into line behind a couple with quite a few groceries, but they were in the process of putting their groceries on the conveyer belt, so I would to be coming up next.

Further down the rows of checkout lanes, a manager was opening up another one. As she walked back toward me, she stopped by the lady in the line next to me, and said, “Go on down there. It’s an express lane, but by time anyone else gets there, you’ll be almost done.” The manager walked on and the lady looked around. She turned to me and said, “There’s a lane open ‘way down there. Go on over there.”

Maybe I looked especially old and infirm, and needing to hurry up and get done with shopping (frankly, the lady looked to be be close to my age). Maybe she was just being kind and thoughtful. Maybe that was her New Year’s resolution-always let other people go ahead of you. Anyway, I said “It’s an express line and I have lots and lots of groceries. But you should go down there.”

“I have lots of groceries, too,” she said.

“But I have more than you do. ‘Way more.”

“No,” she said. “I have more” (which was so obviously untrue). She moved one step toward me and said, with a smile, “You want fight about it.”

“Sure,” I said. “Come on. Let’s count what we have. I know I have more!”

She laughed and then said, a little more soberly. “I’ve noticed on the shows I watch, like Ice Road Truckers and Pickers and House Hunters . . .Do you watch those?”

“No,” I said. “I haven’t seen them.”

“Well,” she said, “They started out by cooperating and working together on a problem and solving it, and now, they just fight and argue, and try to see who’s best. I’ve stopped watching them.”

I said, “When I was growing up, shows like Father Knows Best and Donna Reed . . . “

“Yeah,” she said (which told me that, yes, she is my age).

I went on. “Those shows weren’t really an accurate portrayal, either, of what real world was like, but people solved their problems in more peaceful ways. “

“I worry about the children,” she said. “They see all that fighting and arguing.”

“Yep,” I agreed. “Kids are learning that those are the best, most acceptable ways to work things out. It’s harmful. You know, you should write a letter,” I suggested. “Happy people don’t write letters, so the show’s producers are probably just responding to letters they got that said the shows weren’t interesting. You should write a letter and tell them you liked the show better when the people cooperated.”

“Oh, I just stopped watching the shows,” she said.

As she disappeared behind the rack of magazines and candy, to put her own groceries on the belt, I said again, “You should write a letter.”

There’s an opportune time to do things, a right time for everything on the earth:
A right time to rip out and another to mend,
A right time to shut up and another to speak up,
Ecclesiastes 3:1, 7 The Message (MSG)

The squeaky wheel gets the grease. If the unhappy people consistently write in and say that a television program (or a radio show or a newspaper opinion page or a movie studio) isn’t what they like, for whatever reason, the producers, directors, editors, managers, and advertisers are going to make some changes. And when those changes happen, the folks who were delighted with the content are going to be amazed and confounded because they were very happy . . . and now they’re not. Only a few of the satisfied customers ever write, text, phone, or otherwise communicate to the people in charge. We need to help them out. And it’s so easy now to fire off (in a good way) an e-mail, a text, or even to quickly print out and mail (yes, I know, archaic, but manageable) an actual letter. Most of the time, looking at the web site or even making a phone call, will get you the name of the person you could contact.

After I finished checking out, I went to find a manager. I told her about being unable to locate blueberry cream cheese. A young employee had noticed my searching and asked if he could help. He wasn’t the regular person in that dairy department, he said, he was just stocking it. However, he poked and pushed and reached and found two cartons for me. I checked his name and thanked him. As I left the store, I thought it was the right time to speak up to management about how helpful he was. It’s just not that hard.

I’ve included these links, not so much to force you to watch them or communicate with them, I just thought you might be interested, in case you didn’t know about them, as I did not. I usually have enough of my own reality to work through instead of getting involved in somebody else’s.

American Pickers
Watch American Pickers videos
House Hunters
Watch House Hunters videos
Ice Road Truckers
Watch Ice Road Truckers videos