It's Presidents day & for some reason my #1 son is just as excited about today as if it was Christmas. He also enjoyed Febuary 12th-Lincoln's birthday. Lately he's been obsessed with President Lincoln. They started learning more about him at school this month, along with Harriet Tubman & Martin Luther King Jr. And he was very interested in the all the Presidents. His teacher started using a website called BrainPopJr.com. It's very informative & the kids just love it. I knew it was good stuff when he asked to play on it when he got home from school rather than his Star Wars game.
He's expressed great interest in all the presidents on coins too. He has them all memorized. One night he was quizzing us on them & when my husband thought he'd be all smart & ask him who was on the fifty cent piece. He smartly replied, "I don't know, but do you know who's on the half dollar?" Needless to say, we laughed at that one for quite awhile. As we checked out at his book fair last week he said "That's Jackson." The vounteer checking us out said, "I know your name". To which #1 son replied, "No, that's ANDREW JACKSON". Meaning the $20 bill I gave her.
He's also been very concerned about Lincoln & where he grew up and where his parents are. And Friday at school when they showed his class the new $1 coins being released with George Washington on it, he grabbed his play money penny all excited & shouted "Release Lincoln, release!" I guess he was hoping he might be released from the coin & come alive. He also refers to the Lincoln memorial on the penny as "Lincoln's house on the tail". And of course John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln. This is important to Lincoln's story & according to #1 son, makes him Lincoln's "enemy".
Being that my son watches & plays a lot of Star Wars games, he is now learning about death & dying. It's sort of neat to see him learn the lesson slowly & easily as a child should. Grasping the knowledge of someone not ever coming back. It's been following along with my father having died a year ago Febuary 12th. My son makes mention of this every time we go see my mother asking "Where's your Papa?". He waits for the usual answer he knows that comes with this question. "You know Papa died & lives in heaven as an angel now." To which he always promptly replies "I know." So now that his Star Wars characters are dying & the Jedi are turning into ghosts, he began to ask qustions. We finally put it in terms our literal thinker could get. Ghosts are pretend & only there when pretend people die, like in your game. When real people die like Nana2 & Papa, they are angels. You never see angels. That's the difference.
**"Is Lincoln a ghost or an angel?"
**"Why didn't Lincoln duel (like in SWars) John Wilkes Booth?"
**"Are the north soliders like the Empire? And the south are the rebels?"
#1 son got so into the Civil War from his Lincoln phase that he wanted to use his army men to act out the civil war. We found some army men that were "Civil war men from the battle of Gettysburg" at Hobby Lobby. He loves them.
So happy President's Day to you all and as my #1 son says "There are lots of way we can celebrate Lincoln's life."
Monday, February 19, 2007
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
"Clean up on aisle 6 please!"
Just a small ranting, if you will, on customer service. Oh and it's not completely Politically Correct either I'm sure.
*Why do I get the SAME speech impaired guy with the extra large lips at the pharmacy every time?? Is there a reason that they put HIM at the drive-thru window? Do they see me coming and do a switch-a-roo on me? The ONE time I went inside to try & ward off the same old monologue I have with blubber lips, he was at the register!! Do you believe that luck?! Soon discovering we were at an impass of understanding he hands me off to the only non-American born pharmacy tech. She happens to JUST be learning our little English language. Broken would be quite an understatement since she told me my total was "Eight hundred dolla." Although I guess with it being medication, $800 isn't totally out of the realm of possibility is it? Seems just the job for someone new to our wonderful country though. Like insurance isn't frustrating enough without the Apple Dumpling Gang waiting on me!!!!
**I would think cash registers for stores cost at least a thousand dollars a piece. I'm just guessing here, but let's use that amount for arguments sake. WHY do you think a store would have say, 8-9 registers in their store yet continually have ONE CHECKER AT ONE REGISTER?? Aren't they loosing money? I know this because I go there a lot. I mean A LOT. And is it Murphy's Law that she is has a white beehive & checker Jane happens to be the oldest employee in the store?? If it's not Murphy's Law, perhaps it's the same law that includes sticking the brand new middle aged employee at the fabric department without a guardian.
It's always fun to have a worker so consumed by what they are doing they talk to themselves through the whole procedure & hush you as you try to help them find their ticket book after it's been 3 minutes. Or snap at you to take your debit card back like it was your idea she keep it on the register? I know you have to learn somewhere, but perhaps a little help besides writing out the process on a scratch piece of paper might be more helpful for the new "girl". Or at least let you out of the store before you turn into Rip Van Tinkle.
**Always pleasant is the 10pm trip to Wal-Mart the night before Valentines when you've forgotten that last minute thingie-bob. Stupid people think the store might be less busy then. HA! I laugh in -my-- their face! They lure you in with a close parking spot and then as you walk through the below freezing winds across the parking lot, the doors are LOCKED. Yes locked. You aren't parked at the end of the store that's unlocked. It's just a lark to run back to the car, drive around another 10 minutes looking for ANOTHER space close up so you don't freeze your hiney off. All that so you can walk all the way to the OTHER end of the store where the things YOU need are located. Fun!
**Somewhere along the last few years I guess it's become "cool" or just plain weird to steal feminine products. I surmise this from my experience at a store recently where needing to purchase some "products" I had to go to the front to ASK for them from behind the cash register. Ya know my life is pretty regularly knocking me down a peg or two putting me in my place, but I guess if that's not enough, there's always having to clear your throat & ask Jim Bob the teenaged acne faced boy manning the register, for some "products" please. THAT, will sure let you know pretty quickly that you are really NEVER too old to feel embarrassed like a 12 year old school girl! I should count myself lucky I didn't need condoms too.
*Why do I get the SAME speech impaired guy with the extra large lips at the pharmacy every time?? Is there a reason that they put HIM at the drive-thru window? Do they see me coming and do a switch-a-roo on me? The ONE time I went inside to try & ward off the same old monologue I have with blubber lips, he was at the register!! Do you believe that luck?! Soon discovering we were at an impass of understanding he hands me off to the only non-American born pharmacy tech. She happens to JUST be learning our little English language. Broken would be quite an understatement since she told me my total was "Eight hundred dolla." Although I guess with it being medication, $800 isn't totally out of the realm of possibility is it? Seems just the job for someone new to our wonderful country though. Like insurance isn't frustrating enough without the Apple Dumpling Gang waiting on me!!!!
**I would think cash registers for stores cost at least a thousand dollars a piece. I'm just guessing here, but let's use that amount for arguments sake. WHY do you think a store would have say, 8-9 registers in their store yet continually have ONE CHECKER AT ONE REGISTER?? Aren't they loosing money? I know this because I go there a lot. I mean A LOT. And is it Murphy's Law that she is has a white beehive & checker Jane happens to be the oldest employee in the store?? If it's not Murphy's Law, perhaps it's the same law that includes sticking the brand new middle aged employee at the fabric department without a guardian.
It's always fun to have a worker so consumed by what they are doing they talk to themselves through the whole procedure & hush you as you try to help them find their ticket book after it's been 3 minutes. Or snap at you to take your debit card back like it was your idea she keep it on the register? I know you have to learn somewhere, but perhaps a little help besides writing out the process on a scratch piece of paper might be more helpful for the new "girl". Or at least let you out of the store before you turn into Rip Van Tinkle.
**Always pleasant is the 10pm trip to Wal-Mart the night before Valentines when you've forgotten that last minute thingie-bob. Stupid people think the store might be less busy then. HA! I laugh in -my-- their face! They lure you in with a close parking spot and then as you walk through the below freezing winds across the parking lot, the doors are LOCKED. Yes locked. You aren't parked at the end of the store that's unlocked. It's just a lark to run back to the car, drive around another 10 minutes looking for ANOTHER space close up so you don't freeze your hiney off. All that so you can walk all the way to the OTHER end of the store where the things YOU need are located. Fun!
**Somewhere along the last few years I guess it's become "cool" or just plain weird to steal feminine products. I surmise this from my experience at a store recently where needing to purchase some "products" I had to go to the front to ASK for them from behind the cash register. Ya know my life is pretty regularly knocking me down a peg or two putting me in my place, but I guess if that's not enough, there's always having to clear your throat & ask Jim Bob the teenaged acne faced boy manning the register, for some "products" please. THAT, will sure let you know pretty quickly that you are really NEVER too old to feel embarrassed like a 12 year old school girl! I should count myself lucky I didn't need condoms too.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)