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Posts Tagged ‘shopping’

Enough with retail panhandling

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on November 15, 2011| 4 Comments »

I’m tired of being hustled at the cash register.

Cashiers at the two grocery stores where I shop at regularly have begun the holiday charity spiel early this year. The script literally says, “Would you like to give a dollar to help a family have a turkey for the holidays this year?”

Yes. Yes. A thousand times yes, if I thought that dollar actually went toward the purchase of a turkey. But I’m afraid that only 40 cents of that dollar goes toward a turkey. Possibly less.

And, you see, I know and trust several local organizations to take that dollar and do something awesome with it. Your unknown organization, not so much.

You might say that I won’t miss a dollar here and there. And you’re probably right. But at some point I WILL miss the sum of those dollars, and my own pet charities may get shortchanged.

So stop it. Stop delivering your spiel in a manner that makes me feel like a cheap jerk for saying no.

Stop hooking up with organizations that I’m not familiar with. Would it be so bad to sponsor a LOCAL organization? Ask me to donate a dollar to Manna House, or Friends of Huntsville Animal Services, and see how quickly I say yes.

Until then, the answer is still no.

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Rings in the drawer, pants on the ground

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 9, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Yesterday, I discovered that I can no longer safely wear my wedding rings. Four weeks of stress has led to weight loss, and my fingers are too skinny. I haven’t seen this weight since I had a tonsillectomy at age 20.

Lucky me, I guess, except I hate shopping for clothes and don’t want to get these rings resized.

It’s not that much weight, mind you. Just enough that pants fall a little farther than they should on my hips and the rings slip right off my finger. Not that they’ve ever wanted to stay on my finger. I’m forever finding myself in the car, halfway to a destination, with the realization that the rings are back at home in the knife drawer. My ring finger, apparently, longs to be free of the bonds of matrimony, even if my heart does not.

Now that I’ve gotten used to tiny portions, my body doesn’t want much more. Add to that the fact that I work at home by myself and consider eating more of a social activity than a physical necessity, and you’ll see that I have my work cut out for me.

The journey back to ring-wearing starts today: I’m having lunch with a friend. Tomorrow, perhaps, I’ll work on getting my pants off the ground.

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Just say no to needless bags

Posted in Home, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 15, 2010| 1 Comment »

Too late for a New Year’s resolution? Fine. I sort of started this one in November, anyway.

I’m tired of disposable bags. I have a few of those hip reusable “green” bags that I do my best to keep in the car and use, but I don’t always want to or remember to drag them around with me. What I am aiming for is to reassess how I transport purchases and take some responsibility for decreasing the distribution of single-use bags.

I realize that some bags double as marketing. You can’t walk around Bridge Street without seeing a half dozen women and teens/tweens toting those distinctive pink Victoria’s Secret bags. The statement: I buy underwear. It may be risque. Or cotton.

Several weeks ago, I took a post-Gap trip to Victoria’s Secret. On a whim, I told the cashier that I would just put my purchases in the Gap bag. She hesitated, holding my undies over the pink tissue paper that is also part of the Secret overpackaging, so I gently took them from her and put them in the first bag. Still not really happy with myself for having a plastic bag for one pair of jeans, but I’m making one change at a time.

My next move is to stop accepting bags for small purchases. I was fast enough to stop the Pier 1 guy from giving me a plastic bag for five easy-to-carry chocolate bars (fancy, on clearance) this week, but I wasn’t quick enough to keep the used bookstore lady from putting two paperbacks in an oversized plastic bag. I’ve learned that if you tell cashiers you don’t need a bag AFTER they’ve already put your purchases in one, most will remove your items from the bag and throw it away. (I won’t insist that this action is taken out of spite, but it would be if I did it.)

I can’t change the world, but I can change how I treat it, even if it’s just the smallest of actions.

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As Pictured Below: Free Market

Posted in As Pictured Below, Photographs, tagged , , , , , , , on August 17, 2009| 2 Comments »

cuffs

Wow, Target. I’ve never seen broken handcuffs littering the ground before, and I’ve been to Mardi Gras A LOT.

I can only hope some poor guy escaped before he was forced to look at shower accessories.

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