Unexplained Mysteries Discussion Forums: Unexplained Mysteries Discussion Forums -> Welcome to Biffsville

I've been noticing a trend lately. I'm a big time news junkie and have pretty much always turned to CNN.com for all my news. It seems that I've been coming here lately for more up to date news. CNN is running stories today (guy divorces wife via txt) that I saw on here about a week ago.

I know we all post news stories from different news sources from around the world here on UM. Maybe CNN should look here for it's latest news sources and stay with the times.

Has anyone else noticed this lately too? A friend will tell you about a hot news item and you're like "Oh yeah, I heard about that last week." (thanks to UM) Then your friend looks at you like you're some kind of psychic because you already know so much detail about the story.

The great New York State Lottery. Yes, all you need is a dollar and a dream. It seems like more and more people are bringing their dollars to my local 'Nice-n-Easy' convenience store.

It never fails, whenever I am in a hurry on my way to work and I stop into grab a cup of coffee 'they' magically appear. 'They' are that special breed of individuals that love to slow down lines in every store like pouring concrete mix down your toilet bowl. It seems as though 'they' synchronize their watches to attack all at the same time too. This particular breed I'm talking about is the 'lottery ticket' breed. They are a bit different. They travel in packs usually but occasionally you can find a small group of two or three individuals at once.

This happens to me all too often. I decide that a nice cup of hot coffee would be great on my 25 minute drive to work so I pull into the only gas station in my little hick town. Ah, good, the parking lot is pretty empty this morning so I should be able to get in and out pretty quickly. I walk in to see the normal group of oldsters sitting in the booth with their coffee and bran muffins. They say hello, I say hello and good morning back. The place seems pretty empty. I walk over to 'coffee island'. I call it it that because it's an entire island in the middle of this little store devoted to nothing but coffee and 'crap'pacino. It literally takes up about one quarter of the store in size.

I reach up to the top row of the overstuffed Styrofoam cup cylinder and pull out my usual twenty four ounce cup. Twelve other cups follow my cup out of the spring loaded cup shooter popping out like a semi-automatic Nerf dart gun. I stuff them back in and head over to the cream and sugar. If you are a cream and sugar individual such as myself then you understand the utmost importance of putting the cream and sugar in your cup before you pour the coffee. Actually it's a matter of laziness. I only do that so I don't have to stir the coffee. Sure, it gets a little syrupy toward the end of the cup but that's OK with me.

Now I walk to other end of the island and try to decide which coffee spout I will use today. There are four spouts. One is decaffeinated which I will never drink; that would be like driving a sports car with an automatic transmission. Another is super dark roast which is too bitter for even my taste. There are two remaining. They are both identical as far as type of coffee. I'm guessing because they sell so much regular coffee that there is a need for two of these stupendously sized coffee silos. I pick the one on the left and fill my 'Styro-cylinder of caffeinated happiness' to the top and head back over to the other side of the island to grab a lid.

Wow, that only took me 45 seconds, I'll be out of here in no time. Just gotta put the lid on my coffee now. Pop down this side, oops the other side popped up. No problem we'll just pop that side down and... crap now the other side popped up again. Sometimes I just wish they would just put a roll of duct tape next to the lids to make it easier to put my lid on the coffee. OK, now that FINALLY got the lid on my coffee (another 2 minutes later) I can go pay for it now.

Awesome, nobody in line. Oh wait a minute yes there is; she's got the cashier tied up at the Lotto machine next to the register. She's not one of the normal 'oldsters' from the bran muffin booth. In fact she doesn't look familiar at all. Probably not even a townie. I'll just stand here and wait, after all she's only grabbing a lotto ticket right? I listen closer and hear her telling the cashier all her numbers in a very slow old lady voice; making perfectly sure that the cashier reads each and every digit back to her. I could be wrong but I think every time she said a number with 'twenty' in it her Poly-grip must've failed because it sounded like she was saying "TWELNT-VY". I take a sip from my coffee.

I swear that woman must have listed every number from the number 1 to infinity and beyond. How many Lotto games can one person play? After about 5 minutes they finally mosey their way back over the cash register that I'm patiently waiting in line at. The cashier puts down the pile of tickets that resemble a heap of leaves in my front yard on a windy fall day onto the counter. The old lady glares at me as if to stare the statement "Don't you DARE look at my numbers you young Lotto number thieving whippersnapper!" I guess it didn't matter that she just read them all aloud for everyone to hear. Must've been she didn't notice that during her gambling frenzy. I turn away and sip my coffee again.

The old lady pulls out her 'little old lady' change purse as the cashier is totaling up the damage. I figured she was going to pay it all in pennies or something but she managed to take out a big bill. The cashier says "Ma'am, your total is forty-eight dollars." The old lady hands her a fifty and has that great epiphany that instead of receiving change back she's got two extra dollars that she can now buy scratch off tickets with too. I took a gulp of my coffee and looked the register area again.

Right up until that very moment I never realized just how many scratch off ticket varieties this little store carried. There are two and one half cash register 'counters' at this store. I say one half because the third register is setup on this little rolling T.V. dinner tray thing-a-ma-jig. The other two registers have glass displays that hold those gloriously wonderful scratch off tickets that I never manage to win more than a dollar on after spending ten dollars to have thirty seconds of pure scratching enjoyment.

The old lady looks at the tickets in the display at the register she's in line at and of course none of the ten thousand varieties in that display appeal to her. Off they go, my cashier, that I'm so patiently waiting for and the little old lady; over to the next register to look at the next five thousand variety of tickets. After asking the cashier how each and every scratch off game is played she finally decided on two. They go back to the register I'm waiting at and I realize at this point there's a pretty good size line behind me now.

Another worker from the store goes to the other register. "I can help someone over here" he says looking right at me. I know I'm next in the line I'm standing in already but it was like a beacon for me to go to his register. My feet moved without question to head over to his register. I was two feet away from setting my coffee on his 'scratch off lottery display case' and this blur cuts in front of me and slaps a bunch of penciled in Lotto ticket picks down on the counter before I could get there. I looked at the cashier quizzically and he just shrugged his shoulders. I reached in front of the rude Lotto player and set two dollars down on the counter and said to the cashier in a questioning fashion, "I know the coffee doesn't cost two dollars but just keep the change.?.?" He smiled and gave me a nod of understanding. I turned and started walking toward the door taking the very last syrupy sip of my coffee and tossing the empty Styrofoam cup into the trash. I thought, "wouldn't it be great if stores like this had a line dedicated to lottery players only?" They could call it the Lotto Lane.

This morning started off nicely.
At least once per week my fiancé and I gather up her transcription equipment and head out the door bright and early. Her elderly grandparents need extra help around their house with simple household chores such as laundry, vacuuming and dusting so we are more than glad to help them out. After all, it's not much for my fiancé to work from their house, just a simple unplugging and plugging in of a few PC cables and she's ready to work.

This morning started out like most others. We loaded the car, grabbed Sonny (our mini-dachshund) and headed out. It was raining pretty good out there as we headed down the road. We pulled into our local Nice-N-Easy grocery/gas station mini-market to grab some coffee. The parking lot was full this morning so I grabbed the last available customer parking spot next to a 'Deli Boy' delivery truck that was parked across 5 other normal customer parking spots.
I stepped out of my door into a puddle that was deep enough to soak my foot pretty good. Oh well, that was no big deal. We went into the store and grabbed our coffee. Well, coffee for me and a French Vanilla cappuccino for her.

We paid the cashier and headed back outside. As we were headed to our car a man with a hand truck with some boxes of food heads right toward me and asks "Is this your car over here?" He was pointing to my vehicle parked in a parking spot just like the rest of the vehicles in the parking lot. At first I thought he was going to say something like "Your dog is awesome." That was not the case at all. He was giving me an evil smirk and sizing me up. This guy was twice my size and I could tell right away that he was trouble.

I said "Yes, it is" and continued walking to my car.

He starts shouting "NICE, NICE did you have to park right in front of my god damn ramp?" He was referring not to the ramp out of the back of his truck but to the incline in the curb to make it easier to wheel things up.

I told him "I parked in the ONLY available parking space in the lot. I'm sorry I didn't even realize there was a 'ramp' there. Is it anything like the same type of ramp right over there?" I pointed to another ramp less than 10 feet away from the ramp in the puddle that I ruined his whole day by parking in front of.

Instead of being polite he starts to intensify the situation even more by setting down his hand truck and flailing his arms at me as I continued walking to my car. I stopped and turned around and told him once again that I didn't realize that I was parked in front of HIS ramp and that he didn't have to be "such a ****g prick about it". I turned back and got into my car with him following behind. I guess I shouldn't have used the term "****g prick."

I see at this point that he is walking toward me shouting something. I rolled down my window and he screams "YOU WANNA TALK SMACK BUDDY??? COMON' GET OUTTA YER **** CAR!!!"

I couldn't believe I was being threatened over a situation SO STUPID. Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a very non-confrontational individual. I just laughed put my car in reverse and backed out. Of course about half of my 24 oz. coffee tipped over on my lap making this whole situation even worse for me. I pulled away with this a-hole still screaming obscenities at me in front of all the other customers in the parking lot.

I'm thinking now that I probably should have just let the guy hit me. He would have lost his job for sure. I just can't believe that this guy was such a jerk when all he had to do was wait the two minutes that we were in the store so he could have 'his' ramp back... or better yet he could have just used the other ramp. Not to mention that being in a 'service' field he certainly was not customer friendly.

I hope when his workday ends his Camero won't start and he catches his mini-mullet on fire.

Ok, this is my first blog here on UM.

[rant]

For those of you that know me somewhat know that I work as an IT professional in the Public Health field... more specifically I work for my local Health Department.

About a month ago there was a public health outbreak at one of our major local clambake establishments. A large number of people were complaining of the usual tainted food symptoms. Upon my arrival at work that morning the Health Commissioner called me into her office. They were planning a phone bank to gather information from everyone who had eaten at this establishment in the previous month. They estimated that there were about 7,000 individuals.

I knew there was no way that they could tally this up by hand as most government agencies still like to do so much. I was asked if I could create a database that would track all of this data. Of course I could and I knew it. In fact I already had a template database that I had created some time ago for just such and event. I modified the template into a not so fancy database with some canned reports and had them ready to roll within an hour of being notified about this entire situation. *pats self on back* I was quite proud of the fact that single handed, I was the one that made all the gears turn in the background.

The database was a success and they were able to track the source down to one particular item (duh, it was mahogany clams and I knew this before they even needed to track any of this).

It's been a month since all of this happened and today as I started my lunch break I walked past our conference room here at work and noticed the County Executive and some other 'big wigs' in a pizza party. I asked one of the secretaries what the occasion was and she let me know that it was a 'thank you' party for those involved with the resolution of the outbreak.

Wow - I can't believe I wasn't invited. I felt like Milton Waddams at that very moment. Then I realized that I was not the only one. There were many other of us pee-ons that were responsible for the success of the resolution as well. Secretaries that had worked after hours to take phone calls weren't at this 'party'. Even my boss wasn't invited and he was the one responsible for translating some numbers from my database that weren't in my canned reports.

Now how rude is that??? Not only is it a slap in the face to do that to those truly involved but to put on the party right in our faces?!?!? For those of you who work in any government office, I'm sure you feel my pain. This sort of thing happens all the time. How many times I've been promised recognition for my hard work and I never saw it.

Thats the way the clam crumbles I guess

[/rant]