As much as...
As much as I hated to do it I had to go out and pick up a few things today that we just could not do without. My little trip took me to the local feed store bright and early when they opened at 7:30 AM. All the usual suspects (employees) were there and seemed in a good mood.
It was a good feeling to see people acting “normal” for a change. By "normal" I mean not hiding behind some face mask or backing away as others approached them. I only had to pick up some feed & cedar shavings for the little ducklings or as @bigtom13 calls them “Dups”. My Tex Mex isn’t that great so I can’t say for sure exactly what the conversation was about but I do know the brisket, potato and cheese taco they gave me was “muy bueno”.
From there I...
So after getting...
So after getting my Federal Reserve Notes I headed to the local gas station. Last time I bought gasoline for the truck I thought I got a “hell of deal” because I paid just $1.699 for a US gallon.
That was three weeks ago, now I feel like I got bent over on that deal compared to what I paid today, $1.429. What a difference just a few weeks makes of people supposedly being on “stay at home” orders by the government. Keep in mind that the price includes both state and federal taxes in that price that totals $0.348 of taxes per gallon of gas.
Right now you...
Right now you can’t by a gallon of drinking water for the price of gasoline, in fact a small bottle, 20 ounces, of water will cost you $1.00 plus tax; so if worse comes to worse I might start consider drinking gasoline which is considerably less that the Corona Extra Light cerveza I enjoy.
Speaking of Corona...
Speaking of Corona, the beer, my wife said that the Cerveza Modelo Brewery has shut down temporarily because of the,( you guessed it), the Corona virus. How’s that for ironic, the bad Corona taking out the good Corona. This may well be the end of world coming when evil does overcome all of us.
How much are ya’ll paying for gasoline or petrol where you are? Is water more expensive than fuel right now in your area?
Speaking of paying...
Speaking of “paying for” things, how many of you have experienced not being able to pay for goods right now with paper or coin currency? We have some "germaphobic" people calling the “shots” at some restaurant chains here in the USA, or least where I am in Texas, which are now refusing to accept payment unless it is either a credit or debit card.
I’ve pretty much said for years that the paper “money” we have is worthless but now it really is just that; worthless.
I get the...
I get the “virus “situation is the “reason” but these restaurant execs can take precautionary measures that wouldn’t preclude taking physical “money”. All they would have to do is have one person with surgical grade vinyl gloves taking the money and making change at the drive thru window.
The person only needs one pair of gloves too, because I suspect that the execs don’t really care about the customers’ health they just don’t want their employees coming down with the virus and having the health department ordering them closed. That person taking the money can get out of the way and let someone else hand out the food.
The only other...
The only other reason could be to limit the stores chances of being robbed; we pretty much know that even thugs and robbers have to work during this situation. They can’t go to the unemployment website and say they got laid off from their “job” due to environmental conditions.
The wife has...
The wife has this “unlimited” coffee membership at Panera Bread, which is “limited” despite being advertised as “unlimited”. So she asked me to pick her up a large dark roast coffee while I was out, and sure enough they are one of those chains not accepting cash money. I just had to snap a photo of the “ordering speaker” stand where they had the notice posted for your viewing pleasure.
It is a good thing she has to pay monthly by credit card for the membership and I just had to go by and give her phone number to pick it up, no financial transaction had to take place at the drive thru window for just that cup of coffee.
One thing that did surprise me was the young woman who handed me the coffee wasn’t wearing gloves so I was quite surprised by that, oh I hope she isn’t a ‘carrier’ and me touching that cup will have down and out in a few days. (lol).
So I ended...
So, I ended up my morning adventure from the safety of home at a place I have been really missing, the local Mexican restaurant to pick some good old fashion Mexican food.
Now they had no problem what so ever taking my fresh paper money from the ATM. I guess they aren’t worried about the spread of the virus through money transaction or worried about the potential of having cash and getting robbed. When I paid for my order though, the young Hispanic girl gave me my change back from my $20 and said, “thank you for the tip”. “Excuse me? What tip?”, I thought to myself.
Either she helped herself to a tip from my change or she was pretty presumptuous that I would tip her. I didn’t bother to count the change so if she got her a tip, I really don’t care, it couldn’t have been much anyway. I was just happy to have some of their beef fajita’s going home with me and the salsa and chips. Seeing that I hadn’t had any of their food in at least three weeks I would have gladly paid double the normal price and it would have been well worth it to me. But I didn’t tip her, maybe next time but not today.
I don't believe...
I don’t believe in tipping someone for doing what they are paid to do unless they go above and beyond what is expected of them to do. Taking my order over the speaker, taking my money, making change and handing me the food is all she did, which the owner pays her to do. Nothing above and beyond happened in that little scenario that would warrant a tip in my opinion. Do you tip folks at the drive thru windows? Or am I just a scrooge?
Regardless of your answer, I’m still not tipping drive thru folks, sorry.
One thing I...
One thing I learned today during all that running around is that there must not be a lot of folks actually “staying home” under the stay at home orders. The roads had plenty of traffic on them and the lines at all the places were abnormally long form pre-virus conditions, except for the feed store. You could not tell anything was different there and that suited me just fine.
Damn it's 9:02 PM...
Damn, it’s 9:02 PM and I tried just now to enter the 9:00 PM poker game as “late entry” but it must not of had enough entries because it isn’t playing.
Ya’ll need to come play poker over there, I don’t make nearly enough sharing my wisdom and stories with ya’ll on these “Dash” posts so I supplement my HIVE income with HIVE poker winnings. A missed game is lost revenue for me so either upvote the hell out of these posts please or get on over to BROpoker.com and help support me over there.
Thanks for the read on this, and I do truly appreciate the support from you regular readers of the Dash.
Until next time,
Sult
