Thursday, March 16, 2006

Things That Bug Me

1. Stores that always try to push their credit cards on you when you checkout. Sears is notorious for this. It seems like I get the same clerk every time I go, and every time she asks, "Will you be paying for this with your Sears card?" A "No" answer always leads to, "Do you have a Sears card?" If you say "No" again, she'll ask if you'd like to apply for one, and if you answer that with a "No" she'll try to change your mind by telling you you'll get a discount off your purchase if you apply. Depending on my mood, sometimes I go the all "No" route, and sometimes I say "Yes, but I'm not using it today." That, of course, leads to "Is it the blue card or the gold card?", and if you make the mistake of saying, "Blue card", she'll try to talk you into applying for gold. I'm thinking of having a T-shirt made up, in the trademark Sears colors of white letters on a blue background, that reads "No, I don't want a Sears card", and wearing it next time I'm in the store.

2. Remakes of movies that shouldn't be remade. One my birthday gifts yesterday (along with Jon Stewart's America book-hooray!) was the Pink Panther movie collection. Now, I have nothing against Steve Martin, and it's probably not fair of me to judge his remake since I haven't seen it, but Peter Sellers IS Inspector Clousseau. You know how in baseball they retire the numbers of the really great athletes? They should do the same thing with really great actors/roles. Some things just shouldn't be messed with; Peter Sellers as Inspector Clousseau is one of them.

3. Religions that break their own rules. This one I need to word delicately, since I don't want to offend any Catholic readers I have. The local Diocese here has exempted Catholics from the no-meat-on-Friday-during-lent rule for St. Patrick's Day, so they don't have to give up their corned beef and cabbage. Now, I agree that God is (hopefully) much more interested in how we treat other people than what days of the week we eat meat, but it's supposed to be symbolic. The whole idea is to give up something, to suffer an inconvenience. Either it's a rule or it isn't; breaking the rule because it's inconvenient to follow defeats the purpose, don't you think? For the record, I'm NOT Catholic, and when I worked in an office would thoroughly enjoy ordering meatball subs on Fridays when my coworkers were all having tunafish.

4. Appliance refinishing. Okay, this doesn't really bug me, but I just don't get it. I was following a truck on the highway yesterday bearing a sign that read, "A Better Way-Appliance Refinishing." Under that it listed, "Appliances, Tubs, Tile, Cabinets." I get the tubs and cabinets, and I kind of understand the tile, if they're talking about putting one of those fiberglass shower units over the top of tiled walls. But appliances? By the time they look bad, aren't they usually not working properly anyway? Is it really worth it to refinish them?

Side note: Spell checker wanted to replace "meatball" with "mothball." Now THAT would be an interesting sub...

Posted by The Gradual Gardener :: 7:30 AM :: 13 Comments:

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