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The Snake in the Bag of Potting Soil
Indeed the scream could be heard across the fruited plains.
Because who wouldn’t scream as a three foot long snake wends its way out of a bag of freshly purchased potted soil? This as I was busily dumping soil from the bag onto the root ball of a freshly planted bush.
My husband didn’t believe it for a minute.
“I bet that snake was on one of the branches of the bush you just transplanted,” was his calm remark when I claimed, with breathless fear, that the damn snake came out of the bag of potting soil.
Memories in times of hysteria tend to become muddled and confused. I allowed that the snake might have been on a branch of the bush as I carried it and its root ball across the lawn for relocation. I shivered at the thought of porting the bush all the hell around as if on a lark with a snake wrapped around its branches. Snakes do love to bathe in the warmth of the afternoon sun and a bushy branch is often one of their favored spots.
The movie made in my mind wouldn’t give up the image.
I’d pre-dug the hole for the bush’s new home. That big bush had roots as big as small trees. The new hole wouldn’t accommodate the bush’s long roots so into the garage I went for a fresh bag of potting soil awaiting for just such a purpose.
I carefully arranged the roots hither and yon, then hefted up the bag of potting soil to cover those roots that wouldn’t fit into the pre-dug hole.
My mind’s eye could still see that snake slithering, as if annoyed, out of the bag of potting soil.
The bag of potting soil DID have a hole in it but it was a very small one. It’s not unusual for a newly purchased bag of potting soil to have a small hole, especially after removal from vehicle onto gardening bench.
“I truly believe that snake came out of that bag of potting soil, Billy,” I said with firm resolve. The movie in my mind kept playing the scene over and over again.
“The snake probably fell off of the branch when you set it down and you didn’t see it. Then you inadvertently set the bag on top of the snake without knowing it. When you picked up the bag you saw the snake slither away. It might have been HIDING under the bag,” husband said with the same firm resolve.
For if the snake had really slithered out of that bag of potting soil then where had it come from? Was the snake in the bag when I bought the potting soil? A horrible thought.
Or the snake was living in our garage and was hiding in the bag of potting soil.
A snake living in the garage was also a horrible, frightening thought.
Although we did have a mouse problem in that garage. Yes, even with six cats the mice come into the garage for access to the bird seed then stored in an old army locker we’d had for ages. The former homeowners had installed a cat door in the garage door leading to the back yard. A little mouse, heck many little mice, had figured out not only how to get through the cat door but also how to get into the food storage box we’d used for many years without bother.
The mouse problem was so bad that all over my workbench was mouse poop, some of it oddly in very large piles. I could hardly go into the garage without a mouse darting across my path scaring me bejeesus.
The following day husband and I re-aligned our bird and pet food storage configuration. We cleaned out the old army locker and stored all food supplies in airtight containers inaccessible by mouse.
I had to scream once again.
For there upon my workbench was a shed snake skin!
The snake HAD been living in the garage, had evidently been eating the mice, had pooped long tubule snake turds on my workbench and even changed his clothes on my workbench!
That snake, ladies and gems, WAS in that bag of potting soil. Likely he didn’t come packaged in the potting soil. Likely he chewed that hole in the bag his own fine, sleek black self.
Let’s see. First the mice. Then the snake came after the mice. Next we would likely have mongooses in the garage going after the snake.
Darwin’s law in a little garage here on Serendipity Shore.
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When Does a Sale Price Not Equal a Sale Price?
Although The Wise I likes to consider herself a scribe, not for anything could I convince the Superfresh people that their practice of using the same sales circular for many different stores was bringing about unintended results.
Such as the total confusion of at least this customer. Judging by my email, other consumers felt confused as well.
Here’s how it went down.
The weekly sales circular advertised Glade refills at $2.99, sales price. Now it’s important here to know that I did not know the actual price of Glade refills so I mistakenly thought this was a sales price.
Duh. Silly me. Thinking a price advertised in a sales circular was a SALE price.
When I got to the grocery, I saw no sale flyer indicating that Glade was on sale. I also noted that the Glade price was $2.69. Now how was the advertised price a sale price I wondered?
“Superfresh uses the same sales flyer for the entire state,” the store manager explained by my query. “In Wilmington $2.99 is probably a sales price for the Glade refills.”
What the manager didn’t say but the customer service rep stated later when I complained, was that so long as the price in the store was CHEAPER than advertised it was okay.
There’s something wrong with this picture.
Had I not checked the real price of those Glade refills I would have stocked up on an item that I didn’t need.
I will assumed responsibility of checking the actual price but folks there’s lots of items on my grocery list and silly me, I do not know the price of every one of them. Although you can be sure I’ll not trust the Superfresh flyer ever again.
Even worse, I’ve stocked up on an item, cans of dog food as I recall, under that false premise. THAT time I was delighted to discover the price of the dog food was even less than advertised. I didn’t ask about the discrepancy at the time. I did get bent out of shape that a week later the dog food DID go on sale, at the Georgetown Delaware sale price evidently, and here I’d bought all those cans at what I THOUGHT was a sales price.
It took a while but the customer rep did finally agree that she understood my lament. At first she thought I was complaining about a sales item being cheaper than advertised.
I don’t think the Superfresh chain was deliberately trying to deceive me. I do think they were using economies of scale with that sales flyer and my experience was an unintended consequence.
I’ve been grocery shopping all my life. At many different groceries. I have never had this happen before.
Here’s hoping that Superfresh will change this practice. But if not, folks, be sure to always check the REAL price of an item as opposed to the advertised sales price. Because that sale might not be a sale at all. And unless you want to be stocked up on an item you can buy anytime, check it out.
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The Chinese
We end this week’s Miscellany with my experience with the Chinese. Which was far worse than my experience with the snake in that with the Chinese I spent the better part of my day shaking in my bed, covers over my head, visions of Chinese armies descending upon me, swords at the ready.
Don’t ever do what I did.
For the little map on the Chinese menu indicated the carryout was located in a little shopping center near me. With the Jeep packed and ready to go, I phoned the carryout from my cell phone and placed my order.
It was a large order.
The carryout was located in the same shopping center as the pet store. Which was perfect as boom, pickup cat litter and such, walk over to the Chinese carryout and pick up my order. All ready for me as hey, I’d just phoned it in.
Something about the Chinese carryout bothered me. I checked the carryout menu again and noticed the restaurant which I’d placed the order with was in another town completely!
The Chinese carryout located in the pet store shopping center never heard of me much less had my order waiting. And somewhere in Delaware a Chinese carryout had a big order of mine while I had no idea where it was.
I place a new order at the carryout in the pet store shopping center. I shrugged my shoulders over my errant order at the other Chinese carryout. They didn’t know me. They didn’t know where I live. They’d get over it.
I wasn’t about to phone them and admit the error, understand, in that they’d likely demand I make payment, go to jail, sell my firstborn.
But ah, I did give these folks my home phone number when I placed the order. And they had my cell phone number I’m supposing on caller ID or some such.
All day yon ladies and gems, these people called me. They called my cell phone. They called my home phone. They left incomprehensible messages.
Finally I had to take my home phone off the hook and stuff the cell phone under my underwear deep in a quiet drawer.
Advice from The Wise I-don’t EVER do this.
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More Miscellany posts HERE
Remember Judge Bork ?
Poor fella. The Democrats beat the hell out of this honest man so bad that his very name became a verb. “To Bork-to say completely untrue and nasty things about someone so frequently and so often that the person is perceived to actually BE everything falsely said about them.
MORAL ANARCHISTS
"The leaders of the Democratic Party in the Senate are making it the party of moral anarchy, and they will fight to keep the court activist and liberal."
- Former Judge Robert Bork
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Food Fight at G8
Covered earlier in this Blog, let’s put Chirac’s nasty words about British cooking here for posterity.
FRENCH PREZ LAUNCHES FOOD FIGHT
"(T)he only thing [the British] have given European agriculture is the mad cow. You can't trust people who cook as badly as that. After Finland, it's the country with the worst food."
- French President Jacques Chirac at the G-8 summit
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From TOWNHALL.com
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As James Madison once noted, "Religion and government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together."
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From Senator Norm Coleman
During that Senate circus to “impeach” Karl Rove by the Democrats.
My Democratic friends would be doing the nation a great service if they spent half as much time getting legislation passed that will benefit the country as they do in attacking Karl Rove," Coleman said.
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More Notable/Quotables HERE
Only One
But it’s a doozy.
I assume that yon readers agree with everything I write when there are no comments. Insert wink here.
In response to my Fly on Wall re the Rove/Wilson/Plame Affair a commenter comes up with an “explanation” for Wilson’s lies.
And even manages to bring badly dressed John Bolton into the fray!
Iraq, like most of the middle east, can mine its own uranium, obviating the need to purchase it from the foreign, IAEA-regulated mines in Niger.
Interestingly, it just may be that the current grand jury Valerie Plame inquiry may very well also unearth the author of the forgeries. Look for an information conduit leading from Bolton to Rove.
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