Today I stopped by Chicken Express, a fast food chicken joint in the same vein as Popeye and Colonel Sanders' establishments. My order came to a total of $4.32, so I pulled out $20.32 and waited for the car in front of me to leave the window.
It didn't leave the window.
I waited a bit, then a bit more, then even a bit more. Suddenly I stopped waiting, but only for a brief moment as I read a text message sent by the lovely Meags, then proceeded to wait a bit more.
Finally, the car left the window.
In situations like these, one is apt to blame the customer in front of them for the delay, at 9:35 at night the only thing open is the drive-thru and this car was not behind any other car when it arrived (It arrived a bit before I did, the drive-thru was empty when it got there) so the army of chicken warriors could only possibly be working on this one sole customer's order. It had to be a difficult customer giving them problems with a complicated order, right? Wrong, as I was soon to discover.
I pulled up and was greeted by some girl who started to reach out for my part of the bargain, the $20.32, when the guy who took my order came to the window and indicated this treasure was rightfully his. He then proceeded, as any good cashier should do, to count the money. He even recounted the money. Again, he recounted the money - no, I'm not re-iterating for emphasis, he really did count it a third time. And a fourth time. Perhaps a fifth. He announced he had finally figured out that one 20 dollar bill, 1 quarter, 1 nickel, and 2 pennies adds up to $20.32 and NOT $20.37. This is indeed a difficult concept for any 5 year old to follow, so let me write it out. 20 + .25 + .05 + .01 + .01 != 20.37. He then proceeded to drop the quarter and not pick it up claiming he "didn't care" about the quarter. The extra nickel he kept coming up with sure was a problem, but losing a quarter apparently is not.
He handed me 15 dollars changed and yelled a few times for somebody to bring him some 1s to complete the change-making process. This took a while, but eventually he got me my change. After finally pulling himself together from the stressful addition excercise, he handed me my receipt and bid me a good night. It was an awfully nice "good night," I'll give you that. But it certainly wasn't worth $4.32. I opted to wait for my food rather than settle for a few kind words. Apparently he is not used to such ungrateful cretins as myself to dare stick around after he graced us with his stunning rendition of the familiar late-night good-bye, because he just kind of stared at me for a bit. With a sudden moment of realization that I might want a bit more than a good-night for my $4.32, he handed me my Sprite.
He then proceeded to stare, this time with an 80% more vacant look.
I gave him a few moments to contemplate before mentioning that he had not given me my food. He still did not seem to understand, or perhaps he didn't hear me, but it took quite a while to verbally communicate the idea that he still owed me 4 chicken strips, a biscuit, and some coleslaw. FINALLY, he turned to his left, carefully opened the box on the counter as though it might explode, and looked over the contents. With a red face he resealed the box and handed it to me, and I was on my way.
I think that is my last trip to Chicken Express for a while
Saturday I ran a few errands, one of which was moving a sum of money from one bank to another bank. You see, my very first bank account was a savings account set up at a Nations Bank located in a grocery store. My Nations Bank account then became Bank of America account when they took over, and such has been the case for as long as I have used that account. I go to the grocery store with the bank inside, fill out my form for deposit or withdrawel, and that is that.
However, on Saturday I arrived in the parking lot and looked at the left hand side of the building and found that the Bank of America logo had vanished, replaced by that of 1st Convenience Bank. "Well that isn't very convenient at all," I muttered. I must emphasize that this was actually audible, such was my shock and dismay. I had no idea when the bank might have been replaced, I haven't been there in a few months so it could have been a while ago. My brain's memory of this area is a bit dated as-is, I had even forgotten the grocery store was no longer an Albertsons, but now a Kroger. I lose track of all the things that happen in my hometown, they are always building new things and changing stuff around.
Actually, I'm not even sure how some of htese places survive. We have so many banks, fast food places, dry cleaners, and car washes - with more springing up all the time - yet you never see any of these things go under. I'm in awe that people have enough money to keep all these things afloat, particularly the banks, you'd think at some point in time people would say "Ok a new bank just opened up, but I really don't need to have an account in a 19th bank"
The rest of my errands were not so exciting, really the whole purpose of my writing the blog was to record the bit about 1st Convenience Bank, I rather enjoy the thought that my first thought upon seeing that was "Well that's not very convenient at all." My journey led me to a new brick & mortor Bank of America where I didn't have to fill out any paperwork, they did what I told htem and gave me a receipt. I was impressed thatthey finally modernized the system a bit. I may go back there next week just to experience the thrill of hassle-less banking once more. Maybe I'll withdraw a quarter or something. Perhaps a dime. I'd like to see the teller's face should I choose to withdraw a penny. They probably have some sort of minimum withdrawel limit I'd imagine. I think when I was a teller you had to at least do a transaction of $5.00, but who knows.
I also got my oil changed and a haircut - my first in two months - both went by without event. Though my haircut going by without event is actually an event in itself. I really enjoyed it because there was no attempt at small-talk, I don't care much for the haircut small-talk at all. I just can't strike up conversations with strangers and would prefer not to retest the theory every time I get my hair cut. But this time went fantastic, no small-talk, and she didn't even comment on how thick my hair was. It is pretty rare that a hairdresser not remark about the thickness of my hair, I was impressed. I need to find more hairdressers of the sort because I feel kind of bad when they obviously want to chat and I'm not a horribly chatty person, particularly if I don't know you and see you on a 2 month basis.
The rest of the weekend went swimmingly, 13 hours of 24 season 2 were watched over the 3 days, I quite enjoyed it.
For the past 23 years of my life, Valentine's Day has passed by me as a non-event. As far back as I can remember, I've not given anybody a Valentine card, and the only gift I've given on such an occasion were a dozen roses one year to my Mom and Grandma. That's it, the extent of my participation in the holiday. I've never had a significant other at this time of year before, so participation or lack there-of in the event has never been an issue which required thought. There simply hasn't been a compelling need.
This year though, I have a Meags, and amazingly enough her Spring Break happens right after Valentine's day which means she will more or less be around just in time to celebrate it. And celebrate it we shall, the current plan is to take a weekend trip to San Antonio the second weekend she is here and that will be our Valentine's day, a week and a half after the actual day. But the thing is, I don't really understand the holiday and WHY we celebrate it. It just doesn't make any sense to me in the least.
Let me explain. The holiday's origins (As well as most other holidays seem to have) have a pagan background in which enterprising young men would draw for names of available women and they would then be a couple for that year. Timed dating, you draw a name out of a hat and she is yours for one year for mutual pleasure. Obviously the Catholic Church didn't appreciate this much and decided to make one small alteration to the process. You still drew names, but now you drew names of Saints, and this Saint was yours for the year - not for being intimate with, but rather to imitate. You were to live your life as the Saint for that year. Obviously this didn't go over well, but that is to be expected. The avatar for this Saint-drawing practice was St. Valentine, a man who was clubbed, stoned, and beheaded because he married couples in secret during a time when weddings were outlawed. (Men don't like leaving their wives to go to war, the solution was to not let them have wives)
I can kind of see how one might be inclined to associate the love expressed on this holiday along with those couples who refused to abide by an unjust law and get married anyway. This has a love theme and it was why Valentine was the obvious candidate to help expel the potluck mating ritual. But I still can't see how this relates to a holiday in which I'm expected to give flowers, candy, cards, and lavish gifts to my significant other to prove I love them. They should already know that I love them. The whole concept of an annual, mandatory reassurance of love which I am already showing throughout the other 364 days of the year is lost on me. Sure, not every day has an equal amount of love displayed on it, but it seems to make more sense to me that large displays of love should appear at random rather than a predefined date that you didn't even define.
To me, love is a concept that you share with your significant other and the rest of the world should have very little influence on it. I feel as though Valentine's Day is so deeply entrenched into today's society that it has been expected of men to create lavish displays of affection for fear that they will be in trouble with their companion if they don't. Fear should never be a motivator to show love, love should be that motivator. I have no problem with people celebrating their love, I don't even have a problem with them celebrating it around Valentine's day, but it seems to me that one could easily be celebrating it for the wrong reason. Fear. Celebrating a day marketed by a company rather than a love provoked by an individual. Celebrating it out of societal obligation rather than commitment to a relationship.
Now this coming weekend of the 25th, we are going to be doing the make-up Valentine's day thing in San Antonio, but to me it won't be Valentine's anything. I would have taken her to San Antonio regardless (You know, unless she didn't want to go) of what time of year it was. I only get to see her for a fraction of the year and I want to make sure that those fractions are special times. To Meags (who really likes Valentine's day, second only to Christmas) it will be a late Valentine's day, to me it will just be a day that I'm lucky enough to be able to do something special with the girl I love and only get to see for brief parts of the year. We don't really see eye to eye on the matter, I can't understand the concept of Valentine's day as a necessary ritual of showing love over any other random day of the year, and she can't see why I can't wrap my head around it. But in the end it doesn't really matter what either of us feels about the holiday, so long as we love each other. You won't find me souring an evening with talk such as this, complaining about commercialization and how the industry price gouges poor innocent bystander males wanting to buy a dozen roses for their wife. I know that the day is important to her, and because of this, I'd never want to do anything to ruin it regardless of my feelings on the matter.
While writing this I've actually come to a minor epiphany which gives a formerly meaningless (to me) holiday actual meaning. By the very virtue of the fact that I can't find any compelling reason to celebrate Valentine's day more than any other given Monday in a year - yet knowing that I'll do so anyway out of knowing the importance she places on it, the holiday gains meaning. This meaning doesn't stem from fear of consequences if should I ignore the holiday, but rather from caring about something that is important to her. It becomes abstracted from being about a holiday manufactured for love by corporations and into another item she places deep care upon like her family, her friends, and her music. If I can see the point in caring about those things then logically I can see the point in caring about another item grouped into the same category.
Finally, an understandable and compelling reason to celebrate Valentine's day which isn't a product of fear of repercussions or societal influence. (At least not at its core, one could always argue that it boils down to that if you trace it back far enough) I'd still prefer if this annual event could be done at any spontaneous time of the month in a given year, but at least it now has meaning to me, I'd feel a bit dirty otherwise. Meags is a wonderful, beautiful person who I love very much, and luckily enough she also loves me. I'd hate to celebrate with her without my whole heart, and my doing so with my whole heart requires meaning. Meaning found, dirtiness resolved, just like in a commercial for your favorite cleaning product!