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I was working in the barn one evening when Beta popped in. He wandered around and poked his head in one of the stalls.

He asked me “Is that a cat?” Knowing we do not have a cat, I peeked in the stall.

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I provided this image in case you were wondering how I felt about the game of Monopoly. The exception is the card game Monopoly Deal, as that is interesting whereas the board game version of Monopoly is not.

We had an impromptu tongue twister competition the other day. The winner was our youngest child – the 4-year-old.

Beta proposed a tongue twister, which Gamma promptly tried and failed. Then I thought I would propose one which I always mangle: “Word World”. For those of you without young kids, Word World is a TV show that teaches kids letter and word sounds. For some reason, I can never say the name of the show correctly. It usually comes out as “world world”. So I figured it would make a good tongue twister for other people too.

However, the first person to tackle the “word world” tongue-twister was Delta. Being only four, he hasn’t quite mastered his Rs and Ls, so it came out as “wuud wuud, wuud wuud, wuud wuud”. He said it correctly, for how he pronounces things. But the rest of us forfeited, knowing we couldn’t compete with that.

We moved this summer, and I thought I’d compare the old bus route to the new bus route.

Whereas in years past our kids were the first on the bus and the first off the bus, this year they are first on the bus and last off the bus. The old school at least recognized the importance of limiting the kids’ time on the bus, so we had a long bus ride to school but a short bus ride home. It all evened out.

I don’t know how we angered the bus garage, but at the new school our kids have an hour ride each way, whereas the kids at the other end of the route are on the bus for 5 minutes each way.

Not only is the route direction worse, but the route itself is longer – with many more stops and very convoluted.

Anyway, here are the plots of each bus route (1 mile per grid line):

Old Route
We were stop #1. S is the Start (bus garage) and F is the Finish (school) for pick up. Drop off went in the same order, 1 first and 4 last – but it started at the F and went straight down to our stop.

New Route
We are stop #3. Again, S is the Start and F is the Finish for pick up. Drop off is reversed, so we are the third-to-last stop.

As you can see, there is a lot of stopping and starting and it is much more convoluted. The school is barely more than 3 miles away, so my wife just drives down and picks them up at the end of school. That way they are home about 45 minutes earlier than if they rode the bus.

Give this guy a wide berth if you happen to be driving near him.

Soap operas have been replaced by Facebook.

That is all.

I’m trying to remember the last time I went into a store and bought something without being asked if I have or would like their rewards card / loyalty card / credit card / promotional deal.

For once, I would like to walk into a store, buy something, and walk out. The only thing I want the cashier to say is a greeting and then my total. After I pay, a simple valediction is sufficient. I don’t want to have to answer any questions.

I know it’s not the cashier’s fault – she’s doing her job. It’s the management’s fault for making her do that. So, dear corporate store management, please stop making your cashiers ask questions of the customer.

I thought I’d swing by the big box hardware store on the way home from work to grab a couple items. Three things. I could find two of them. I normally avoid asking the workers for directions, but since I had told my wife I’d be home at a certain time for dinner, I didn’t want to leisurely wander around the store looking for the last item.

So I ask a store employee.

Of all the dozens of employees, whom do I happen to ask?

The one guy whose job is to sign up people for the store credit card.

He walks me to the location of the item, all the while explaining the benefits of the card. There are a few varieties of the item I want, so I start perusing. The guy keeps extolling the virtues of the card. He does not go away.

“No problem, take your time. I’ll wait here while you choose.”

I find what I’m looking for. The guy says they’ll give me free money if I sign up today. I don’t care about the money as much as I care about getting out of there.

“I’ll have you signed up in two or three minutes. It’ll be fast, and you’ll save money. How can you pass up free money?”

I agree, since I have been assured I will save money and I can cancel whenever. I don’t think I want to agree, but I do.

He walks over to his desk, and he enters my information into the computer. That takes about 2 minutes. He clicks the Submit button and the computer complains about something. He has to fix a field – make my middle name into just a middle initial. He goes to do that and the computer erases everything and tells him he has to log in again.

He is apologetic and doesn’t know what happened, but he must enter my information again. So we do that.

I didn’t see it before it happened, but as soon as it happened I realized what the problem was. The credit card application is browser-based. He barely missed the middle name and clicked outside the text field. When he pressed the Backspace key, the browser took that to mean Go Back a Page, which ended his secure session and made us lose everything.

I keep that information to myself. At this point, I do not want to distract the man and/or start another conversation thread. I just make sure he clicks in the appropriate areas and a text box has the focus whenever his finger goes near the backspace key.

We get the form successfully submitted and he tries to print. Not only does it not print, but the session was lost again. He can’t print my confirmation because he does not have my number. And we can’t enter it again because it was successful.

He has to call the central processing office. He gets someone there, discusses the situation, and gets a confirmation number. Then he logs back into the system and prints my page. We had spent about 15 minutes on a 2-minute process.

And now, in order to ensure I have a great customer experience, he walks me up to the front of the store and helps me check out. He makes sure the cashier gives me my discount, and makes sure I have his number in case I ever have any questions or problems.

I went into the store planning to buy 3 items. I left with 3 items plus a new credit card and a scowl in my mind.