Tag Archives: A&P

Crazy Baldheads

I am convinced the local supermarket, the A&P is truly the supermarket of the damned. I go there frequently since it’s basically around the block, but just about every time I go there I get frustrated.

It’s been like this for years. The cashiers are usually empty headed or quite surly. There are certain ones that I avoid just because dealing with them is so unpleasant.

An acquaintance that I ran into there a few months ago suggested I get a job there but I think I have too many enemies in the store already.

I’ve had cashiers request my credit card when paying for groceries when they decided to pull rank, but were so blinded by their anger, didn’t notice that I had given them a different card.

I’ve even gone online and complained about them at the A&P website as well as local listings. And they’re not cheap either. The Shop Rite which is a few blocks away is larger and cheaper, but since the A&P is closer I go there.

I think that is going to change.

Today I did some grocery shopping and went to buy some Land O Lakes eggs. I have a coupon and the eggs, 50¢ off. I walk to where the eggs are usually located and couldn’t find them.

A few other eggs for sale, but not Land O Lakes. They used to have Disney Eggs on sale but even if I was going to buy those, they weren’t around either.

I ask one of the store employees where the Land O Lakes eggs are and he tells me they’ve been discontinued. That made me wonder if the chickens stopped laying eggs. Then he asks his supervisor whats up with the Land O Lakes eggs and he says they’ve been discontinued, then says they stopped carrying them.

Odd.

I finish my shopping and head to the register and then head to the courtesy counter and ask the girl behind the counter, ‘What’s up with the eggs?’ She says that she and her husband are trying to have a baby but nothing’s happening yet. She picks up the phone and asks Joe Schmo to call the courtesy counter.

Joe Schmo is the guy I was just talking to. Joe Schmo calls her back and tells her they’re not carrying them anymore.

I walk home groceries in the bag that I bring with me to go grocery shopping and climb the 4 flights. Also had a big container of distilled water for Bill’s apnea mask. I come home put everything away and call up Shop Rite which does sell Land O Lakes Eggs.

I get my bag and head out once again. A totally different shopping experience. Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding by Elton John was playing on the PA system. Plenty of eggs available. I leave a happy consumer.

Come home and an old Hoboken friend, now on Facebook sent me an email, a secret Facebook group she wants to tell me about. I click the link and find it’s a trap.

It asks if I want to invite friends and I don’t and it goes ahead anyhow. I immediately post on Facebook that if you get a Facebook invite from me, delete it immediately. I hope I got to everyone in time.

On my Facebook pages it says Harpy and the other friend ‘like’ the secret group. Which to me, seems bogus.

Headed out to Pier A to strum the guitar but despite of being in a better mood than previous days, I couldn’t really connect today with the guitar. Plus it was a bit cooler out today than it’s been and I was in shorts.

So basically it’s been that kind of day.

I do have three DVD’s from the Hoboken Bibliothèque. Smoke by Wayne Wang, Where the Wild Things Are by Spike Jonez and what I’ve been trying to get for the longest time, Black Dynamite. So I guess that’s what I’ll be watching tonight.

I also have a book on No Wave written by Thurston Moore and Byron Coley and that’s a lot of fun.

Tomorrow Bill and I are being included in Pride Magazine’s article on interracial same sex couples. I’m sure I’ll tell you all about that tomorrow. Bill was also interviewed by BBC Sussex last night. He listens to it at work when he’s working late.

Every time I see that Michael Kay commercial for Kidde CO detectors, I always root for CO.
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Aftermath

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Let’s see. It’s Wednesday, that much I know. It’s definitely a lot cooler out. And it’s now 6:00 and I was supposed to call Juan between 4 and 5:00. I just remembered that. What else? I’m sure I’m forgetting something.

Tried going to bed earlier than usual but couldn’t fall asleep so I wound up staying up until the usual time. No it’s not caffeine. I don’t drink caffeine after noon. It wasn’t so bad in any event. I did fall asleep eventually after following my own advice, to get out of bed instead of tossing and turning and my advice proved right.

I’ve taken to going out and getting the paper in the morning, if only to put away the garbage cans I put out the night before. Last week I had a talk with Julio about it. How I put out the garbage most nights, including the recyclables, but no one can put back the empty cans in the morning.

Julio claims he did and I cut him some slack, saying that 9 times out of 10 I’m the one who does it. He is that 1 time. I did not bring that up with Bill since it took a while to get him to stop putting the recyclables in with the trash.

When I was employed, I would leave the building after Bill, I would reach in the garbage cans and pull out empty Vitamin Water bottles that were recently in the kitchen here. In a suit and tie yet. It only took over a half dozen times before he eventually got the message.

Today I decided to go to Shop Rite in Hoboken. The A&P is closer but Shop Rite is much larger and has better selections and generally better prices, though I usually spend more money at Shop Rite. I don’t know how that works. Also ran into Roda and his son Logan, food shopping.

Midway through my shopping experience, I get a phone call from Bill. I suggested that if he has to sing a song for an audition and he’s no so sure, that he should write out the lyrics by hand so he will, in effect own those words and make them more personal by writing them out by hand.

He was calling to thank me for that idea. It’s something I picked up when growing up and had to sit at the dining room table for 2 hours, ostensibly to do homework. Even if I had homework that could be done in 10 minutes, I would still have to sit there for 1 hour and 50 minutes.

My brother Brian would sit opposite me for those 2 hours. It was mainly because we weren’t the top notch students our father encouraged us to be.

That was a joke. Our father never encouraged us to do anything.

So while my father sat about 15 feet away, my mother 9.5 feet away and the TV blaring quite loud since my father was losing his hearing, I would get one of the books from the encyclopedia and start writing out by hand various pages that caught my eye.

Brian, sitting where he was, would try to steal a glance at Johnny Mann’s Stand Up and Cheer.

The 2 hours at the table didn’t achieve much but some improvement did have to be shown in our grades. I don’t know how that worked out, but I certainly benefited from social promotion.

Remember, I’m the guy who wrote an essay on his Algebra final. And I’ve held up my end. Haven’t used Algebra since.
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