Help Me Out
Nobody wants to make life easy for anybody. Take this past Friday. A co-worker and I went to Dunkin Donuts before work, to get some coffee. She has a gift card that we always use. So when we arrive, right before 9 AM, we realize that we are in the midst of the 9 AM Construction Worker Consortium, where every Boston construction crew has sent a delegate to pick up that day's order. (On a side note, I have never seen anything like this - we're talking buckets and buckets of coffees, bagels, donuts, muffins, straws, napkins... it's like an entire operation. Guys had clipboards.) Obviously, there's a line and a wait. So we wait. When we're next, this guy behind the cash register calls us over to his register at the side. We make sure he is pointing to us (he is) and he again tells us to go to his register, so we go. And after we order, we see a sign on his register that says "Cash only - no credit cards." Now, look, we debated for a minute or two, while the guy - Habib - was getting the food, whether we'd have an issue because we were at this register trying to use a gift card. We figured no, because a gift card wasn't a credit card, and didn't require the whole swipe and sign deal. Plus, he had called US over to HIM. We calmed down. When Habib came back, though, we found out how wrong we were. Not only would he not accept the gift card, Habib informed us, but no Dunkin Donuts were taking anything other than cash. That's right. On Friday, January 27th, not a single Dunkin Donuts took any form of payment besides dollars and cents. Looking back, we probably could have probed further and made a decent case about gift cards vs. credit cards (as stated above), but when you have waited through literally about 50 coffees and donuts and you have another 250 worth of construction worker coffees behind you waiting, you pretty much have only one option: pay cash and leave. So we did. Throughout the day, I told a few people about the Dunkin Donuts Disaster, and how the franchise was really experiencing some serious technical difficulties if absolutely none of them worldwide could take credit or gift cards. I stopped telling people this, though, after the fourth consecutive person (out of five people I told) said that they had bought stuff at Dunkin Donuts and used a credit card, and it had been just fine. This led me to my two final conclusions: first, the people I know obviously have money issues (umm, charging stuff at Dunkin Donuts? Unless you were one of the construction guys ordering the store, I think if you don't have the $2.17 for the coffee right then, I'd go without) and, more importantly, Habib is a fraud.
In another case of nobody wanting to make life easy for anybody, I attended a family dinner last week. My Aunt Bev had bought my grandma, for her birthday, one of those 20-Question Game machines, where the machine guesses what you are thinking of by asking the 20 questions. For the entire day, all we heard about was how amazing this machine was. "It got cat!" my grandmother kept saying. I think she nearly flipped out when she realized that we had gotten it to guess "panda bear." I love my brother telling her, "Umm, it didn't guess mine." My grandmother asks him, "What did it guess?" "Underwear," he says. "What were you thinking of?" she asked. He looked around for a second, sheepish. "Uhh, nothing." Good grief. So anyway, everyone can tell that my grandma is pretty psyched about this, and so far, it's guessed everything. Everyone's impressed. So we take it to dinner with us. And we eat at this Chinese restaurant, and it guesses chopstick. That just put the lady over. She couldn't take it. Finally, my other aunt, my Aunt Diane, pipes up. She hasn't been paying much attention to this game, which already has been annoying my Aunt Bev, who can't deal with my Aunt Diane and always feels like Diane thinks Bev is inferior. So my grandmother tells Diane what the deal is with the game, and Diane's like, "Okay, let me try this. Let me see this thing." My Aunt Bev is practically jumping out of her chair. Her older sister thinks something she got her mother is cool! She can hardly contain herself. So she tells Diane to think of an object, and Diane says, "Okay, I did." Bev says, "No, you have to tell us what it is." After some heming and hawing, Diane says, "Okay okay, I'll tell you." So Bev says, "What is it?" Diane says, "A brandy sifter."
I wish I had a video camera.
First of all, and really, most importantly, Bev's face was priceless. She rolled her eyes and shook her head, like "Oh, right, you have to pick the ONE thing that will prove that my game is a failure, just like me." So priceless. I was so busy concentrating on this reaction that I nearly missed my grandmother's outrage.
"A brandy sifter? That's what you think of! How about a teapot! A toaster. A kitchen appliance. A brandy sifter!" This was made about ten times funnier because my aunt has been drinking like she's in a contest with Diana Ross (pre-rehab).
For the record, I'm still not sure what the hell a brandy sifter is. The game went away after that. But the point remains: nobody makes life easy for anybody. (My brother claims this was the runner up moment, because he had earlier tried to make conversation at the silent table by asking, "So, have you seen 'The Producers?' to which two people yelled out - at the exact same time - 'I loved it.' and 'Horrible, depraved film.')**
(**This was the email I got today: "Elana, there's no such thing as a brandy sifter. It's a brandy sniffer. The glass is designed with a wide top so that you can sniff the brandy." Umm, I am dumb. Ironically, I hate when people mess up words like that. Especially when they're making fun of people while doing that. Ugh. Oh well.)
Speaking of all of this "making life easy" stuff, how about making some sort of rule that when it's inclement weather, pedestrians have the right of way at all times, no matter what? How about some drivers - in their dry, warm cars- being somewhat courteous and allowing people on foot to jump over puddles and snow banks without fearing that they're also going to be run over? How about not jumping the red lights, so people crossing the street don't have to worry about the Mercedes gunning them down while they try to figure out whether the puddle is ankle- or knee-deep? Is that reallly too much to ask? I don't think so.
In another case of nobody wanting to make life easy for anybody, I attended a family dinner last week. My Aunt Bev had bought my grandma, for her birthday, one of those 20-Question Game machines, where the machine guesses what you are thinking of by asking the 20 questions. For the entire day, all we heard about was how amazing this machine was. "It got cat!" my grandmother kept saying. I think she nearly flipped out when she realized that we had gotten it to guess "panda bear." I love my brother telling her, "Umm, it didn't guess mine." My grandmother asks him, "What did it guess?" "Underwear," he says. "What were you thinking of?" she asked. He looked around for a second, sheepish. "Uhh, nothing." Good grief. So anyway, everyone can tell that my grandma is pretty psyched about this, and so far, it's guessed everything. Everyone's impressed. So we take it to dinner with us. And we eat at this Chinese restaurant, and it guesses chopstick. That just put the lady over. She couldn't take it. Finally, my other aunt, my Aunt Diane, pipes up. She hasn't been paying much attention to this game, which already has been annoying my Aunt Bev, who can't deal with my Aunt Diane and always feels like Diane thinks Bev is inferior. So my grandmother tells Diane what the deal is with the game, and Diane's like, "Okay, let me try this. Let me see this thing." My Aunt Bev is practically jumping out of her chair. Her older sister thinks something she got her mother is cool! She can hardly contain herself. So she tells Diane to think of an object, and Diane says, "Okay, I did." Bev says, "No, you have to tell us what it is." After some heming and hawing, Diane says, "Okay okay, I'll tell you." So Bev says, "What is it?" Diane says, "A brandy sifter."
I wish I had a video camera.
First of all, and really, most importantly, Bev's face was priceless. She rolled her eyes and shook her head, like "Oh, right, you have to pick the ONE thing that will prove that my game is a failure, just like me." So priceless. I was so busy concentrating on this reaction that I nearly missed my grandmother's outrage.
"A brandy sifter? That's what you think of! How about a teapot! A toaster. A kitchen appliance. A brandy sifter!" This was made about ten times funnier because my aunt has been drinking like she's in a contest with Diana Ross (pre-rehab).
For the record, I'm still not sure what the hell a brandy sifter is. The game went away after that. But the point remains: nobody makes life easy for anybody. (My brother claims this was the runner up moment, because he had earlier tried to make conversation at the silent table by asking, "So, have you seen 'The Producers?' to which two people yelled out - at the exact same time - 'I loved it.' and 'Horrible, depraved film.')**
(**This was the email I got today: "Elana, there's no such thing as a brandy sifter. It's a brandy sniffer. The glass is designed with a wide top so that you can sniff the brandy." Umm, I am dumb. Ironically, I hate when people mess up words like that. Especially when they're making fun of people while doing that. Ugh. Oh well.)
Speaking of all of this "making life easy" stuff, how about making some sort of rule that when it's inclement weather, pedestrians have the right of way at all times, no matter what? How about some drivers - in their dry, warm cars- being somewhat courteous and allowing people on foot to jump over puddles and snow banks without fearing that they're also going to be run over? How about not jumping the red lights, so people crossing the street don't have to worry about the Mercedes gunning them down while they try to figure out whether the puddle is ankle- or knee-deep? Is that reallly too much to ask? I don't think so.
<< Home