I Score One for the Gipper

What's a gipper?

Today I called Safeway/Vons customer service to lodge a complaint. The other day, when I opened my new jar of strawberry preserves, I found a hair-like substance in it (see picture).

After a relatively short call (not too much hold music and the representative spoke loud enough to be heard) they arranged for me to pick up a refund at the store.

Not too bad, right? I feel like I've conquered the system somehow.

I feel special.




Updated 7/21/12: I didn't make this clear in the original post, but I want to extol Safeway/Vons for their excellent customer service! I didn't actually pick up the refund (I just brought in the contaminated jar and they let me trade it for a new one; I didn't have to go to customer service at all!) but I am extremely pleased with the service and care I have gotten from Safeway, both corporate and from my local store.

Trickle of Consciousness

Sometimes, artists like to use a technique called stream of consciousness in which they remove the filters from their minds and write or paint whatever they think of first in order to get a raw and uncensored look at the human psyche.

I would do that right now for a couple minutes but I'm so tired and distracted that all I'm really going to type is a mere trickle of that.

Let's roll.

1. I really want some ice-cream right now....I know it's probably full of a lot of fat and bad calories and stuff, but that's not really stopping me from thinking about it.

2. There are some wacky articles on Yahoo! today. Here are 3 that caught my eye:

A) A woman gets a heart attack while eating a gigantic burger, smoking a cigarette, and drinking a margarita.

[What a horrible waste of resources. Why is it that people can be so stupid (or ignorant? selfish? unaware?) as to do something so horrible to their own bodies and confrontational to humanity as a whole? What unrestrained display of gluttony is this? Is this America today? What happened to the days of restraint, sensibility, and self-control? Where did the discipline and morality of our former generations dissipate?]
(That article is here)

 B) A young woman in China falls into the sidewalk. It literally collapses under her and she falls in. Pretty scary, actually. That video is here.

C) A couple kids landed in the hospital because they got alcohol poisoning off-- Oh, goodness-- hand sanitizer. They distilled and consumed the alcohol from the hand sanitizer and didn't do too well. That article is here, though I warn you that you may smack your head in frustration a couple times while reading it.

[How can our kids be so stupid today? I just don't understand. While I know that most of the darling beasts we call children don't usually act this way, I just can't help but feel offended by the actions of some of these kids. {Though, admittedly, I don't think I would have ever thought about using a salt to distill the ethyl alcohol from hand sanitizer. I would like to try that sometime as a science experiment.} Why is it that these few people can mar the rising generations of America as irresponsible drunkards?]

3. I'm really tired.

4. Everything is piling up on me and I'm tired and I"m getting slightly stressed out.

5. I read a couple books lately...I finished up Antigone (by Sophocles), The Road (by McCarthy) and Catch-22 (by Heller) as well as a couple other works not worth mentioning. All wonderful books. Great stuff.

Antigone strikes at the heart of the greater moral issues of the time of the Classical Greeks but has a definite appeal to us as contemporary and modern citizens of an era that we think is so much more "advanced" than those of our predecessors; The Road is a rather pessimistic book about the journey of a father and son in a post-apocalyptic world and their struggle to survive as well as the bond that grows between them; Catch-22 is an extremely funny and extremely serious book about a group (is the technical term squadron?) of American soldiers stationed in Italy and the hilarious results of the inefficiencies of the war time hierarchy.

6. I'm really, really tired. I also need to shower...I'll probably do that after I'm done with this post.

7. I like pears. I need to do a lot of cleaning.

8. I like chocolate...I hate how good chocolate is expensive, though.

9. Gas is expensive, too.

10. The 2012 election is going down the tank.

11. I understand that I'm not a politician or an economist, but I can't even grasp how the country is running on an almost $16 trillion dollar debt. The interest on that debt must be a lot of money....Am I supposed to buy a US bond?

Now I'm sure I'm rambling...boy do I need that shower....

Have a fantastic day/night, wherever you are. Keep out of trouble, and God bless.

12. I almost died on Sunday...I was moving to the lane on my left on the freeway and I didn't really look and a car came shooting by me at 60mph or so right before I merged into the lane. In other words, if I had switched lanes 1/3 a second earlier I would have gotten side-swiped by the car as it came past me...Scary thought.

13. When's the last time I drank milk? Maybe I'll go drink some now, before my shower. Milk builds strong bones, and the fat in the milk isn't necessarily unhealthy fat.

At Lunch, 3/14/12

I wrote this on 3/15/12:

    I gave a double cheeseburger to a homeless man at lunch yesterday. It doesn't seem like much, now that I think about it, but it's been a weird experience for me. I grew up with a rather traditional view on the homeless-- that they're all lazy drug-addicts who should go get a job. But recently, a number of factors shifted in my head as I spotted this scruffy, dirty, half-asleep, and wholly worn-down man sitting in a corner of Burger King.
    I noticed him only after I had ordered two double cheeseburgers-- and thoughts started running through my head. Should I go back and order something for him to eat? But I'm in a rush and I can't get back in line. Should I just ignore him and leave him alone? But he probably doesn't get much to eat and I'm sure he needs this lunch more than I do. Am I supposed to give him one of my double cheeseburgers? But I'd get hungry, and, besides, I paid for them. They're mine, aren't they?
    As I grew from my childhood, my mother's attitude to the homeless changed a bit; a lot of homeless people have troubled lives or mental disorders or just some bad luck. They might be on drugs or they might not, but giving them some food certainly won't hurt anyone. And anyway, didn't God say that whatever you do for those who are hungry, you do for Him? And wasn't serving the poor a big part of Jesus's ministry? And, after all, I did get baptized on Sunday, and baptism is supposed to be the outward expression of an inward reality-- to strain toward the plan and uses God has for you...And right now, God really wanted mt to give a double cheeseburger to this man. I didn't want to give my food to this man, per se, but I knew I was going to. It's only the right thing to do.
    When I got my order, I walked up to the sleeping man and said, "Excuse me sir." He didn't budge. I said "Hello?" but still he didn't move. So I took a burger out of my bag, looked around, and placed it on the table and slid it close to him, and I left.

Defending Death: My Stance on the Death Penalty

   Defending Death: My Stance on the Death Penalty

     The death penalty has long been considered a controversial subject: Is taking another person's life a form of justice or is it an act of immorality that should be abolished? Because justice demands death for some serious crimes and because the death penalty increases the net benefit to society, I ultimately agree with the death penalty.
    The death penalty brings peace of mind to the overall community.  Knowing that an offender will no longer commit a crime gives the community a sense of comfort and relaxation, for those who are put to death under the death penalty no longer have a chance to commit any crimes. While the death penalty may not restore a damaged family, it brings closure to the offender's actions and to the victim's family.
    Human life is important; that is why we must strive to protect it by enforcing the death penalty. By using the death penalty, society saves more lives than it loses; more people are apt to think twice about committing a crime if they know their life may be forfeit if they are caught. By deterring crime, the death penalty prevents many of the feelings of pain and anguish that families of victims often feel after an offense is committed and preserves the life and integrity of a family and community.
    Moreover, the death penalty does not commemorate the human disregard for life but rather stands as our testament to it: Were we not to use the death penalty, it would mean that we do not consider the value of human life so great that a murder by one person does not deserve the murderer's death.The death penalty is not the blind killing of criminals; rather, it is a legal form of justice by which we may uphold the importance of life we hold dear.
    Perhaps, too, the death penalty can be considered more humane and more efficient than life in prison; wasting away in prison, a criminal with a life sentence no longer really experiences life, and, perhaps, death would be a greater act of compassion.
    Justice is the concept of righting a crime or wrong-doing. It involves the consequences and the penalties of one's actions and the resolution of the fears and tensions of the offended party. Ultimately, justice demands the highest form of payment for some crimes, and that payment is the life of the offender.