| Forward this to a friend Subscribe to more newsletters |  | | [United] | | Right this way to savings | Enter store for a few, quick items in middle of busy errand day. This should only take a second!
Gather items in basket, as disembodied ghost head of Kate Gosselin appears. Never visit this store without a coupon, she says. All items are 40 percent off with the circular, and without it, you will have to file Chapter 11.
Solution: Store has an app. Stop in middle of SILK FLOWER aisle to check phone. Basket is heavy. Balance basket on knee while using phone with one hand.
App is stored in THE CLOUD, which might be something from Elon Musk? Download app from THE CLOUD, which might also be the new Ryan Murphy show? Get app off THE CLOUD, realizing how much personal information you have given to something you don't understand.
Service is spotty. Move to WOVEN BASKET aisle, hoping for reception. Move to INDIVIDUAL BEAD aisle. Move to GARDENING FOAM aisle. At last, it works.
App welcomes you back. Perfect. App wants to use GPS. Select yes. App asks to set default store, which is the one you are standing in. Finding no such store, app requests you enter the zip code. Leave app to Google zip code.
Family of four tries to squeeze by. Move into PICTURE FRAME aisle, where reception disappears. Watch for opportunity to move back to GARDENING FOAM, peering through gaps in 6-by-6-inch shadow box display.
WOULD YOU LIKE TO JOIN THE REWARDS PROGRAM, app asks. Unsure the difference between rewards and coupons, select yes to be safe. App requests name, address, phone number, Social Security number, blood type, a urine sample and 20 sample pages of your novel.
Click submit. App churns, reception flickers. Panic. Move to MODELING CLAY, then MINATURE DOLLHOUSE FURNITURE, then PUFFY PAINT. Balance basket on other knee, because first knee is bleeding from previous basket scars.
Click WEEKLY AD, which has no coupons, only a drop-down menu of 64 things to buy. Start shopping online out of habit, before remembering you are in physical store.
Click REWARDS. Find none, because you signed up moments ago and medical records take time to process.
Click COUPONS. There it is. A significant savings off all items, except items the store does not want to give savings on, detailed in fine print. Take screen grab of bar code, because you are done taking chances.
Move to register, shoulders tall with pride. You are the MacGyver of savings, a true hero amongst retail.
Stick phone out, proudly. Cashier yawns, grabs paper coupon for the same deal sitting on register, and scans it.
Crumble into a thousand specks of dust. | | |  | | [Associated Press] | | You get a raise! You get a raise! You get a raise! | Welcome back to the six of you who aren't mad after last week's warm take on Publix subs! Seriously, several lifelong, close friends sent correspondence to let me know I was canceled. It had to happen at some point, I guess.
Well, good news. I decided to move past sub takedowns and be a cheerleader, to insist some of our most beleaguered citizens get their comeuppance. That would be teachers and moms.
Seems like a foolproof equation, and yet. Every time I write that one group deserves praise, it brings people out of the woodwork to say some OTHER people deserve praise. I get it. Everyone is overworked and underpaid, and everyone wants recognition. Problem is, it's not a very exciting column to say, "Everyone in the world should get more money and attention!" At a certain point, you have to drill down.
For the record, I do want many people to get more money. I think that's ... let me check my notes, and ... yeah, a minimum wage increase.
Last week was Teacher Appreciation Week, and I encouraged everyone to bring your favorite educator a bag of money, in the manner of noted robber, the Hamburglar, or the cast of Ocean's Eleven. I also noted that my stepkid's school was having a "dress like a teacher day." A teacher friend and I had fun speculating how that might look, from pizza stains to uncomfortable shoes. Reader, I joke you not, the kid went to school in the hair bun she slept in. "Don't you want to brush?" we said. "No," she said. "This is perfect."
Teachers, we love you so much.
Read it: It's Teacher Appreciation Week. Give them bags of money.
Sunday was Mother's Day. Since we are all vaccinated, my family hightailed it to the only reasonable place to celebrate: Red Lobster. I believe Cheddar Bay biscuits are the fourth vaccine.
In the lead up, I was not feeling so cheerful. I wrote some version of this column last year, in high-pandemic times. I ended up leaving it in notes and pivoting to something lighthearted, with these Mother's Day haikus (they hold up!).
Now, we know how this turned out for women, and it's not good. So many people lost their mothers. And millions of women left the workforce, with disproportionate parenting demands on women under a microscope.
There's no right way to parent through a pandemic, and I just wanted to let moms know that, if they tried it all, they made it. Grace is the theme, now and always. You did it, moms.
Read it: This Mother’s Day, the moms are not all right | | |  | | [Courtesy of Karl Moeller and Kevin King] | | And another thing! | I'm devastated.
Have you heard that the Kellogg mansion is en route to demolition? Do you know what the Kellogg mansion is? Yes, Kellogg, as in cereal. Read this Christopher Spata story to find out more, and don't sleep on the photos.
We walk past this home often. We long ago decided to buy it when we inevitably win the lottery, like the Clearwater city council member who had to get his winning ticket out of the trash at Publix (that really happened!).
It's so over the top, and it's perfect. I wanted to spend my evenings unwinding at the bar, going slowly more mad like Jack Torrance, while wasting away in my own opulence. Is that too much to ask?
I heard there might be follow-ups on the story, so stay tuned. I can assure you, I did not win the lottery and will not be swooping in with the buy, though maybe there is still time.
Contact Stephanie Hayes at shayes@tampabay.com. Follow @stephhayes on Twitter, @stephhayeswrites on Facebook and @stephrhayes on Instagram. | | Did someone forward this newsletter to you? You can sign up to get Stephinitely in your own inbox next time. Subscribe for free here. | | | | |
No comments:
Post a Comment