Friday Funnies

Click the pic for more Friday Funnies

Picture it... N FL... 1999...

TYP and I had our own bizarre adventures today. We went to Winn Dixie (I prefer Publix, but it's too far... hopefully the new one will be opening soon) for groceries, now that HRH got paid (still no check from our former landlord). Unfortunately, we were both hungry. LOL! Anyway, they have a system there where you check yourself out. You run each item over the scanner and it is transported to the end of the counter where you get to bag it yourself. All this and they don't have discounted items like all the other Winn Dixies! Occasionally - like every time we go there - an item won't scan and someone has to come over and punch some keys till it does. Well, naturally, we had an item that wouldn't scan, although the same item (different flavor) had scanned just before it. One of the employees comes over and punches a few keys. The machine says the item is not on file. TYP tells him the other one scanned for $1.67, but he ignores that and continues punching buttons and scanning, all to no avail. He goes off to get more help and we scan a few more items. He comes back with reinforcements.

They scan and punch, still to no avail. They still won't listen when we tell them it's $1.67. By now 4 guys are hanging over this machine, scratching their heads, scanning their employee cards (which lets them punch in some mysterious codes unknown to outsiders)... The older guy scanning the item was apparently too impatient to wait when the screen said PLEASE WAIT and kept trying to scan the item. Meanwhile, TYP and I are exchanging knowing glances (it's the tattoo*) and asking each other, 'How badly do we want this item, anyway?' By now, of course, the employees are on a mission. The scan-happy ol' geezer finally freezes up the machine and they have to REBOOT. Still oozing impatience, he tries a few keys while its saying PLEASE WAIT and the whole thing freezes up mid-boot. Finally, he decides to obey the command to remove the half-finished checkout receipt. Too late! GAME OVER, MAN! GAME OVER! A cashier has ambled in and out during this entire episode. Finally, she comes over and informs us we'll have to finish scanning one aisle over, so we take our cart over there while she SUCCESSFULLY reboots the machine and gets the rest of our receipt out. The old guy actually finished scanning our groceries while we bagged. And he apologized for the trouble, which was a refreshing bit of nostalgia in itself. I told him as long as the frozen food is still frozen, I'm happy.

By now, we're wondering if we ought to skip the run through Hardee's (whose manager informed us they are no longer considered fast food) drive-thru. But they aren't very busy and there are no cars in line, how long can it take? HAAAAA!!!!! We place our SMALL order and pull around the building and see ONE CAR AT THE WINDOW! Well, he's been here a couple of minutes, anyway, surely he'll get his order and leave pretty quickly. Hmmmm, why is he getting out of his car? Why is someone inside reaching out and hugging him? Good grief! Can't he go INSIDE to visit his old friends?!! In the meantime, another truck has pulled up behind us and the driver is quite obviously getting impatient. Finally, a bag goes out the window and into his car. He doesn't follow it. Then a drink goes out the window and into his car. He doesn't want to follow it either. I'm sitting there calculating how much further we can go on the gas left in the truck.

Hmmmmmmm...we had X gallons of gas. We get Y miles per gallon. We have gone Z miles. RUHROH! We done gone too far! So there we sit with a truckload of frozen food and no gas. Finally, I do something I never ever did before. In desperation, I stick my head out the window and holler, 'WE'RE RUNNING OUT OF GAS!' The guy looks semi-apologetic and says, 'They're being slow'. EGADS! Get real! Finally someone brings our order out to us, takes our money, goes back in for change, comes back out with said change and a cup of water for the guy behind us. HE takes off, we back up and pray we'll make it home. The guy is still standing at the window, rush hour traffic is backed up to the other end of town... Thankfully, a nice lady waves at us to pull in front of her. The dirt road is starting to wash out on the edges again after all the rain last week and we meet another truck coming around a corner and squeeze between him and the not-quite-so-badly-eroded edge, trying to coast as much as possible... We made it home and sat down to eat our burgers, which had NOTHING on them. Well, it's not as if we EXPECTED them to get the order right! We relived the highlights of our day as we ate, laughing ourselves silly. Sure, NOW we can laugh! HRH is the one who has to get the truck to a gas station. LOL!


*For those who came in in the middle of the show... the tattoo is someting our family has learned to live with. The one line we hear most often is, 'never saw anything like that before'. We've determined there has to be a big M (our last initial) tattooed on our foreheads and they see us coming.

ps - is 'last initial' an oxymoron?

Have a JESUS-filled day! ^i^