Simplicity

I just had a WHY ME?!? moment.

My husband and I trekked out to the dreaded Department Store to do our weekly grocery shopping. I try to avoid that place as much as possible, but in our town we’ve found they have the cheapest groceries, so we still go there. Before going to Department Store, we went by our bank to cash a check and in our cash back, they gave us one of the older ten peso bills.
So, here we are standing at the self check-out, trying to expedite the process of leaving as soon as we can, and we try to pay for our groceries. All our other bills go in fine, but the machine just won’t accept this particular ten peso bill. Frustrated, we finally flag down one of the employees for help. She takes our bill and holds it up to the light, then mumbles something about it being counterfeit. She gives it to another cashier, who says she’ll be back in a second, and the second cashier walks away. Here we are, still trying to finish the last ten pesos of our transaction, and they took the last bit of cash we had. We stand there waiting…and waiting…and waiting. Turning people away that try to get in line behind us, telling them there may be a long wait. Finally we get tired of waiting and we decide we really don’t want the milk we just spent our precious hard-earned money on to get warm, so we just pay the rest with our debit card (which we should have used in the first place.)
Two cashiers finally come back, excitedly waving our ten peso bill. They said they just called a bank (which happens to be the one we use not too far away) and it is a counterfeit. They said it was missing a certain marking and that we should go back to the bank and report it and trade it in. The two cashiers start excitedly talking about their new future careers…in the NBI and we just stand there shocked that our bank would do something like that.
So, we load up our car and drive back to the bank. I go inside and tell them that they just cashed a check of ours and gave us this ten peso bill that is supposedly counterfeit. They run it through a machine to detect the weight and markings..it’s fine. They take it to the “head honcho” guy just to be extra sure, who takes a look at it and says it’s completely real. Apparently the teller they had talked to advised them not to accept the bill if they thought it was counterfeit. So, all that for nothing. I did just have them deposit the money into our account so we didn’t have to worry about getting accused of carrying counterfeit money anytime in the near future.
By now, our milk is lukewarm and we’re eager to get home because we realize we just wasted about thirty minutes of our life. Thanks for nothing.

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Thanks everyone for your input on the various Bible studies I have to choose from. I was over whelmed on Sunday by the sheer number of choices, but God definitely spoke to me about which one to do and He used you all to confirm what I was feeling! The study starts next Wednesday, and I’m really excited about it! It’s been quite a while since I’ve been able to participate in a women’s Bible study, and I’ve missed them!

This is off topic, but I did want to say that I’ve been busy with some other paintings, but I haven’t posted them to John yet. My camera seems to be getting worse and worse. Mae agreed that I need a new one after seeing my last attempts to photograph my work. So, I was able to order an “early Christmas present” that should arrive next week! I can’t wait to get it, but until then, I won’t have any new paintings posted. It’s hard being patient too, because I have a couple of really cute ones to show you all!

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Twice this past week, once on a TV interview and once while on the phone, I have heard something very similar to this: “If such and so had happened, I literally would have died!”

Both times, the events in question were not life threatening, and the sentiment was an exaggeration. It made me want to say, “Literally? Really? So, you mean your heart would have stopped pumping blood, the coroner would have taken your body away, embalmed it, and you would be buried in the ground right now? Because you know that is what ‘literally’ means in the way you just used it don’t you?”

Of course, I didn’t say that. Out loud.

I just rolled my eyes. Literally.

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I don’t watch television very much, but the other night there was an interesting documentary that caught my eye on 20/20. The reporters discussed the increasing number of middle-aged women who are undergoing plastic surgery to try to look like they are in their twenties again. When asked what is different about her looks, one woman responded, “My entire face: my forehead, nose, eyes, cheeks, chin, lips. The surface of my skin has been completely redone. My neck has been lifted and I’ve had liposuction from my waist to my knees.” Her first plastic surgery was in the 80’s when she decided she wanted to make herself look like Barbie. When asked if she was vain, she responded, “No, I’m not vain. People who look in the mirror and think they look pretty good are vain. I look in the mirror and I always see room for a little improvement.”

When this woman is ninety years old, she says she still wants to look as if she’s twenty.

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A good friend sent this to me..read it for a good laugh!

When you have to visit a public bathroom, you usually find a line of women, so you smile politely and take your place. Once it’s your turn, you check for feet under the stall doors. Every stall is occupied. Finally, a door opens and you dash in, nearly knocking down the woman leaving the stall. You get in to find the door won’t latch. It doesn’t matter, the wait has been so long you are about to wet your pants! The dispenser for the modern “seat covers” (invented by someone’s Mom, no doubt) is handy, but empty. You would hang your purse on the door hook, if there was one, but there isn’t - so you carefully, but quickly drape it around your neck, (Mom would turn over in her grave if you put it on the FLOOR!), yank down your pants, and assume “The Stance.” In this position your aging, toneless thigh muscles begin to shake. You’d love to sit down, but you certainly hadn’t taken time to wipe the seat or lay toilet paper on it, so you hold “The Stance.”

To take your mind off your trembling thighs, you reach for what you discover to be the empty toilet paper dispenser. In your mind, you can hear your mother’s voice saying, “Honey, if you had tried to clean the seat, you would have KNOWN there was no toilet paper!” Your thighs shake more. You remember the tiny tissue that you blew your nose on yesterday - the one that’s still in your purse. (Oh yeah, the purse around your neck, that now, you have to hold up trying not to strangle yourself at the same time.) That would have to do. You crumple it in the puffiest way possible. It’s still smaller than your thumbnail. Someone pushes your door open because the latch doesn’t work. The door hits your purse, which is hanging around your neck in front of your chest, and you and your purse topple backward against the tank of the toilet.

“Occupied!” you scream, as you reach for the door, dropping your precious, tiny crumpled tissue in a puddle on the floor, lose your footing altogether, and slide down directly onto the TOILET SEAT. It is wet of course. You bolt up, knowing all too well that it’s too late. Your bare bottom has made contact with every imaginable germ and life form on the uncovered seat because YOU never laid down toilet paper - not that there was any, even if you had taken time to try. You know that your mother would be utterly appalled if she knew, because, you’re certain her bare bottom never touched a public toilet seat because, frankly, dear, “You just don’t KNOW what kind of diseases you could get.”

By this time, the automatic sensor on the back of the toilet is so confused that it flushes, propelling a stream of water like a fire hose against the inside of the bowl that sprays a fine mist of water that covers your bottom and runs down your legs and into your shoes. The flush somehow sucks everything down with such force that you grab onto the empty toilet paper dispenser for fear of being dragged in too. At this point, you give up. You’re soaked by the spewing water and the wet toilet seat. You’re exhausted. You try to wipe with a gum wrapper you found in your pocket and then slink out inconspicuously to the sinks.

You can’t figure out how to operate the faucets with the automatic sensors, so you wipe your hands with spit and a dry paper towel and walk past the line of women still waiting. You are no longer able to smile politely to them. A kind soul at the very end of the line points out a piece of toilet paper trailing from your shoe. (Where was that when you NEEDED it??) You yank the paper from your shoe, plunk it in the woman’s hand and tell her warmly, “Here, you just might need this.”
As you exit, you spot your hubby, who has long since entered, used, and left the men’s restroom. Annoyed, he asks, “What took you so long, and why is your purse hanging around your neck?”

This is dedicated to women everywhere who deal with a public restrooms. It finally explains to the men what really does take us so long. It also answers their other commonly asked questions about why women go to the restroom in pairs. It’s so the other gal can hold the door, hang onto your purse and hand you Kleenex under the door!

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There’s an unwanted guest at our house these days. As far as I’m concerned, he’s definitely worn out his welcome. Somehow he decided to slip through the back door hiding behind our dog, Abby. I guess he thought he’d go unnoticed. But I have noticed him, that’s for sure. He keeps following me around the house, to the kitchen, to the bathroom. When I open the door to try to encourage him to go back outside to the big, beautiful world out there, he simply doesn’t listen. Maybe it’s because he secretly knows I don’t own a flyswatter. If only he could read, he’d see it written on the grocery list to get!

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