No More Bandages, Thanks

If you’ve been a regular visitor to EasternShoreFishAndGame.com, you will know that I am a man who doesn’t mince words or hide the truth.

I have written about the demise of Montgomery Ward, Sears, Toys R Us, and Kmart, and will be commenting on the critical condition of Lowe’s and JC Penney.

Throughout my years, I have patronized all of those establishments and bought everything from clothes and tools to guns and tires.  And throughout several of those transactions I wound up with varying degrees of success.

When I felt slighted as a consumer I made the management aware of my feelings.  More often than not, they would simply offer lip service to the tune of the situation being out of their control; too bad.

Leaving an establishment with an incomplete sense of accomplishment tends to make me look for another place at which to conduct future business.  And I don’t believe I’m alone.

Chasing customers away is pretty counterproductive to a good business plan.  Stores advertise via print, radio and television media, as well as the internet through pop-up ads.

All this advertising costs money and is designed to attract, and keep, buyers coming into your establishment to spend more and more money.

That last paragraph is not some well-kept secret among merchants and monstrous vending conglomerates.  That is, after all, how these joints stay in business.

Macy’s and other well-established stores offer annual parades to attract parents and kids to buy stuff for Christmas.  Walmart publishes a regular paper flyer in the daily newspaper, besides forwarding an e-version to my phone – just to be sure I get it.

As you can tell, just going into a store is not really enough.  After the initial visit, it is desirable to lure those same customers back in for repeat sales.  This is where coupons, loyal customer cards, individual store credit plans, and layaways, excel. 

So I began thinking about where all those former unpleasant, smarmy, and unappreciative employees of Montgomery Ward, Sears, Toys R Us, and Kmart, are now working.

It was an epiphany when I recently saw a television advertisement for a product my Dad used, and introduced me to some fifty-years ago.

Gillette razors, razor blades, and bandages – no, Gillette doesn’t make bandages, but should – had become a tradition in our household.  It’s been tidying up men’s faces for generations, with little or no complaints from the female part of the families.

Great interest, is much too kind to describe my feelings when I watched this feminization of the American man in a Gillette television ad.

Some social do-gooder, who likely makes too much money, created this slap-in-the-face of most men and many Gillette product users.

In essence, it squarely placed men into the Harvey Weinstein prison cell by somehow drawing a crooked line from the segment of the human population with guy parts, to all those guys being sexual perverts and misogynists.

Of course, Gillette is wrong.  Very few men mistreat women, and need little for which to apologize.  Perhaps Gillette took this opportunity to rub the noses of American men into some sort of imaginary pile of woosification as a publicity stunt, or maybe they actually believe that tripe.

The very idea of them to offer contrition on my behalf is not only arrogant, but offensive.

This is the part of the story where I proudly announce I will no longer patronize Gillette because I am not a part of their sick, contrived notion as to who consumes Gillette products.  I’d rather continue standing to pee.

In any case, it would appear to me that Gillette, a division of Kraft, is desperately trying to achieve the same status as Montgomery Ward, Sears, Toys R Us, and Kmart – all has-beens.  Good job, Chairman and CEO and New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft!

Grousing Again

Okay, okay.  Sure, I’m regularly picking on a place called Tallmart.

I use this store name because I want to avoid giving away the fact I am referring to a store named Walmart.  Please don’t tell anyone, though.

As you can imagine, today’s journalistic venture is about Walmart, er, Tallmart.

I continue to shop there because they frequently have what I want, and the necessary stuff is reasonably priced, and I usually come away with a true story of some sort.

The kicker is that going to my local Tallmart winds-up being a treasure hunt, of sorts.  I was looking for mineral oil.  Mineral oil is not where you’d think it would be unless you figured it would be with the laxatives.

My sainted wife and I searched high and low, making our way through the personal health section, the pharmacy department, even automotive.  Since I don’t normally imbibe in mineral oil – on-the-rocks or otherwise – we eventually stumbled upon it by chance.

A dozen of eggs, three yellow peaches, two Bosc pears, a bottle of mineral oil, and some elbow macaroni later, and we were ready to check out.

My local Tallmart doesn’t have a “suggestion box” likely because they don’t want suggestions.  From previous shopping trips there I found that speaking to the store manager is akin to talking to a folding lawn chair.  The aluminum type with the plastic webbing.  But I digress.

Speaking with a manager some years ago, I was passing along information on an unpleasant visit there; the manager patiently listened and eventually looked me straight into my eyes when she said, “But he passed the drug test.”

This epiphany brought me back to the real world where I realize I wasted so much time in school.  Had I known I could get a job just by not using dope, I could have been a CEO.  Alas.

So I have now decided it is better to come home and talk to Smokey the Cat who is much more intelligent, and who also passed a drug test.

In any case, my latest suggestion for Tallmart employees and executives, alike, regards the leaving process.

Yes, Tallmart has made leaving their stores very, very difficult, bordering on impossible.

When my local Tallmart was built some twenty-years ago, they optimistically built the store with eighteen – that’s 18 – checkout lanes.  Those lanes easily occupy one tenth of the floor space.

Unfortunately, on any given day, only two checkers are manning TWO of those 18 lanes.

Checkout lanes are expensive to build and maintain, and occupy precious floor space on which merchandise could be displayed.

Clearly there is a lack of money-oriented people on The Shore that are able to pass drug tests.

So to expedite things to get pesky shoppers like me out of the store more quickly, they installed self-checkout machines.  Ah, the Tallmart braintrust was at it again.

Self-checkouts consist of scanners with scales and a modest computer screen.  Off to the side is a contraption that holds the plastic bags into which you place your scanned items.

That barcode on each package is waved in front of the scanner until it beeps, indicating it registered and you will dutifully pay for it.

In all actuality, this self-checkout thing is pretty enjoyable inasmuch as you don’t have to deal with surly, drug-free employees any more than you absolutely have to.

$15/hour job creator - I mean eliminator

On the way back home I realized what corporate America is doing to us as consumers.  We buy gas and must pump it ourselves.  We are urged to buy cars on-line without as much as a test drive.  Banks are making us do our financial business at ATMs.  And now Tallmart is coaxing us to check ourselves out.

Here’s some final food for thought.  All those angry minimum wage Americans demanding a $15/hour minimum wage should be careful what they wish for. 

At this rate, they won’t be needed because the customers will be doing their jobs for them.  Perhaps they should demand $50/hour for avoiding customers.  And they can smoke weed all day long.

Best Idea Ever

This brilliant story initially appeared in 2015.  In light of today's political climate, we feel it should be resurrected.  Please enjoy, and thanks for reading.

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ˌtrebyəˈSHet/  noun: trebuchet; plural noun: trebuchets; noun: trebucket; plural noun: trebuckets

      a machine used in medieval siege warfare for hurling large stones or other        missiles.

Words often heard after reading this weekly blog include, “Wow!  What a great idea!” and, “I never thought of it that way!” and “That guy should be institutionalized!”

This is one of those “Wow!  What a great idea!” moments.

Each year, on The Eastern Shore, creative folks gather to compete with their homemade trebuchets, as there is no outlet for purchase of trebuchets near our home.

Illegal alien return device

These devices were used extensively in the Middle Ages, roughly the 1300’s, to toss stuff over the walls of castles under siege.  In essence, these devices were the heavy artillery of the time.

Large boulders and bodies infected with diseases would be launched into the supposedly safe confines of the fortified ramparts, only to find a dilemma of what to do with the biological weapon of the time.

According to history, trebuchets, also known as catapults, found a niche in warfare whose only downfall was mobility.

It seems as though the illegal alien problem in America has been brought to the forefront by a viable presidential candidate named Donald Trump.  This problem is not new, as is evidenced in Nannygate. 

For you youngsters, or those with poor memories, Nannygate was the result of the 1993 nomination for the United States Attorney General by our first black president, William Jefferson Clinton.

He nominated federal judge Zoe Baird for consideration, who quickly withdrew because of her employing several illegal aliens as housekeepers and nannies.  Immediately thereafter, President Clinton nominated Kimba Wood, another judge who also employed illegal aliens.  It appeared to be an epidemic.

Finally, he decided to nominate swimsuit model Janet Reno, instead.  She got the job.

But after all these years – twenty-two, to be exact – the problem remains and the hand-wringing continues.

An idea to build a fence along the border was met with snarls of disapproval by illegal aliens.  Go figure.

That fence would cost too much, and the monies to build it would have to come from the services given to these law-breakers.  Free housing, education, food, telephones, and medical care would have to be cut, but that would be unfair to the criminals who broke into America.

Here’s my idea.  Build the fence with the admission fees of, let’s say $10 per person.

Admission, you say?  This is where those trebuchets come in.

Line them up against the border fence and load them with illegal aliens.

It could be a new hobby that would keep those clever mechanical geniuses in business, year-round.  Rather than just pumpkin chunking, those ancient artillery pieces could be used for illegal alien chunking.

You’re welcome.

BOOM!!!

As I age, I find the world has tilted just a bit on its axis a little more every day.

Over the years I have witnessed the legalization of murdering babies, and the banning of constitutionally protected guns.  I have seen the mockery of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover for allegedly cross-dressing, but have seen the applause of contemptible FBI Director James Comey.  Further, I have witnessed the ardent effort to make vehicles safer, only to have those safety features nullified by cell phones.  Alas.

During my years as an elementary student, I recall a meeting with parents and teachers at our school discussing the assembly of provision boxes for each student.  Parents put together cardboard boxes with canteens of water, canned tuna, canned soup, utensils, toiletries, and bedding, that included blankets and a pillow.

Immediately thereafter, we first-graders began watching video cartoons featuring a turtle and other cute animals attempting to protect themselves from impending danger.

This was the beginning of the Cold War – a dark period in history that pressed the Soviet Union and the United States to the brink of atomic war.

First graders – and likely Harvard graduates – had no idea as to the gravity of atomic war, nor the fact there would be few, if any, survivors, period.

In retrospect, vaporization would probably be a pretty quick way to meet God.  But our parent’s fears were supposed to be assuaged through this exercise in futility.

“Ignorance is bliss,” comes to mind when I recall this smoke and mirrors display.

I am now living in an age where my biggest threat is too many drinking straws winding up in the oceans, allegedly leading to the rapid increase in planet temperatures.  Oh, my!

So every day, I thoroughly comb the media for stories akin to nuclear missiles being lobbed into grade schools, nurseries, or hospitals.  I have yet to find one.

But, I did run across something nearly as frightening as nuclear destruction for today’s generation to fear.

The first sentence says it all: Journalism professors at Leeds Trinity University in the UK have been instructed not to use certain words — in case they frighten sensitive students.

Nope!  I did not make this up.  It seems as though UK students at Leeds Trinity University (LTU) are having “anxiety” attacks over the use of such offensive words as “don’t” and “do.”

This article goes on to say that LTU students simply can’t cope with the use of “capitalized words” for some reason.

Sadly, jazz hands

I’m not going to get into the cessation of clapping, at Britain’s University of Manchester, where instead of using applause children/university students are encouraged to use “jazz hands” so as not to offend the sensitivities of other college snowflakes.  No kidding.

It seems unfathomable to think about how these easily offended university tykes would handle being turned into instant glass by a 300,000 degree Celsius blast.

Welcome to a future without drinking straws or clapping.