ARCHIVES - George Lee Cunningham

ARCHIVED POSTS

October 12, 2023

Empowered

Carmela bought this workout T-shirt, but she didn’t realize until later that just above the right breast was the word “EMPOWERED.” She likes the shirt and she continues to wear it, but it did spark a bit of a discussion between nerdy wife-and-husband over what exactly does “EMPOWERED” mean. “The word would suggest that an outside somebody “EMPOWERED” you. I know my wife, and she was born “POWERED.” It’s one of the things I like about her.

The Rat Pack

We are at war. Fall has brought on an influx of mice and rats. We are all in favor of live and let live. Rats and mice are an important food source for birds, coyotes and other wildlife, but inside our house, we become an important food source for them. Not only do they chew away at our food and supplies, but they beget new generations of hungry mouths. The rodents must die. But if one is married to a soft-hearted woman – how you kill them matters. Quick and easy is the rule. So we are placing electric rodent killing traps at various locations. Zap! Goodbye you dirty rat.

Retail Suicide

You have to wonder sometimes if some big corporations are intent on committing suicide or if they are just so incompetent that it only seems that way.

As we get older, our clothing requirements are simple. We buy much of what we need either online or from superstores such as Costco. But once in a while, my wife Carmela likes to go to a big retail store and try on different outfits and see how they look and feel – something that is impossible online or at a large warehouse store.

So a couple weeks ago, off she goes to Macy’s – where over the years and through many iterations – she has shopped for more than 50 years. But this time the experience was different.

She went there to buy a leather handbag, but on the way to the handbag section, she passed though the women’s clothing section and found five items to try on. She decided to buy one of them – a pair of white slacks – and proceeded to the section with purses.

Little did she know that the retail genii at Macy’s seem to have divided the store into sections. And although she’s really not certain, after the day’s experience, she has gotten the idea that shoppers are supposed to pay for each item in the particular section it’s chosen from and and if a shopper wishes to buy items from two or more sections, they have to stand in line two or more times and pay for the items at different registers. Now Carmela is not absolutely sure this is the situation, but the brouhaha that ensued with her planned purchase of slacks and a purse makes this seem likely.

It’s as though when you go to Home Depot you have to wait in line to pay for nails at one cash register, then go to another register to buy light bulbs, and wait again for a potted palm at yet a third register.

Macy’s – one of the first department stores – has been through many iterations, but in one form or another it has been around for 165 years. How much longer will it survive in an ever-competitive field?

Good question.

So my wife – a very clean-cut and friendly 68-year-old woman – went shopping unaware of the new rules that Macy’s seems to have implemented.

As she walked over to the handbag section with the as-yet unpurchased slacks on her arm, she heard a man on a two-way radio saying: Customer has left try-on area with unpaid merchandise on her arm. She’s moving toward handbags.

How weird, she thought.

Then she looked up to see three women security folks with walkie-talkies tracking her – one to the left, one to the right, and one stealthily moving in front of her. The disembodied voice then described Carmela and kept directing the three women to keep tracking her.

Realizing what was happening, Carmela approached the closest security woman and said, “excuse me, I think you’re talking about me.” The young woman quickly turned her back to Carmela and would not acknowledge her presence. She tried once more to talk to her with the same results. Then she tried one of the other two women. Same response.

Meanwhile the man on the walkie talkie kept tracking Carmela’s movements, describing her and his suspicion that she was a thief over the walkie-talkies so everyone in the area could hear.

At this point, another customer looked at Carmela and asked, “what’s going on?”

Carmela told her Macy’s security obviously thought she was stealing something, even though she was in the interior of the store, moving further inside the store, and nowhere near the exits – which she would have to use in order to actually steal something. The fellow shopper made a nasty comment about how lousy Macy’s has become.

Carmela obviously agreed.

Disgusted by the experience, Carmela put the slacks back in the slacks section and left. Then she came home, cut up her Macy’s charge card, and wrote an angry letter to Macy’s corporate headquarters, complaining about her experience.

Two weeks after sending the letter, Carmela was contacted by a woman from Macy’s corporate headquarters, who promised somebody would be in touch soon.

Three days later another person from Macy’s called. She rudely said there would be a “thorough investigation” into the situation, but “of course” they couldn’t tell Carmela anything about the investigation nor would they ever contact her again.

In corporate-talk: Screw you lady.

Fair enough.

When an organization is intent on suicide, there’s not a lot to do except remember them for what they used to be and take your business elsewhere. Online, perhaps.

– George Lee Cunningham

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July 30, 2023

Ego Tripping

Everybody may have a story to tell, but not everyone needs to tell it. The story for most folks is they were born, they lived, they worked, they loved, and they will at some point die. That’s nice, but by itself, it’s not a story that has a point. Just saying.

Work And Play

I’m going to die – just like everybody else – but I’m not going to stop living in the meantime. When folks retire, spending their golden years going on cruises and playing golf is fine, but if that’s all they do, it’s like having nothing but dessert. Work, however you define it, is and always has been, the main course.

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News

April 17, 2024

Minor Character

Sometimes I feel like a minor character in one of those really long James Michener historic novels. I’m one of the guys they check in on a couple of times during the course of the book and one more time when he finally kicks the bucket. In truth, that suits me just fine. I don’t want to be one of the major players – those guys who lie, cheat, sleep around, make a lot of money, kill a lot of people, and then then suffer a tragic death on Christmas Eve. I just want to be me – plugging along, having some fun, loving the same woman for years, and then quietly passing away.

March 25, 2024

Cereal Killer

I have almost given up on cereal. As a younger man, I loved a sugary treat. As an old man, who has to watch his diet, I find myself checking labels on everything. Sugar is the enemy. For instance, Cap’n Crunch – a former favorite of my wife – contains: Corn Flour, Sugar, Oat Flour, Brown Sugar, Palm and/or Coconut Oil, Salt, Reduced Iron, Yellow 5, Niacinamide, Yellow 6, BHT, Thiamin, Mononitrate, Pridoxined Hydrochloride, Rioflavin, and Folic Acid. My choice: plain old Shredded Wheat. Ingredients: wheat and BHT (a harmless preservative). Not a taste treat, but at least I’ll live to tell about it

Highway Memorials

Driving across country nowadays, we notice a growing number of roadside displays – flowers, crosses, and ribbons – marking the sites where people apparently died in traffic accidents. I do understand mourning the passing of somebody you love, but I’m not sure I see the point of putting a display at the place along the road where they died. Even sadder is the fact that flowers wilt and highway trash piles up around the displays, making them just another sad reminder of life cut short.

December 5, 2023

Love Motives

I often tell my wife I love and adore her, mainly because I do and also because women like to hear the man in their life actually say the words. But during one conversation I had to confess that some times when I say it – especially when she is irked and giving me the deadly silent treatment – I am also reminding myself of that fact so I don’t start yelling and slamming doors. Is that so wrong?

Being Mortal

I am officially an old man. Sometimes I forget, then I look in the mirror and there it is. The truth is that life has its limits, and that is how it should be. There are new generations coming up, ready to step up and take our place. They are welcome to it. If you have reached old age, you have made some blunders in you life. If you think otherwise, then you are indeed a fool. You can warn the new generations about the mistakes you made, but they are oblivious. This too is as it should be. It’s their world, and it’s on them to screw it up for the generations to follow, just as we did for them.

Good Deeds

There is a saying that no good deed goes unpunished. It’s mostly – but not always – true. The problem with good deeds is that most people who do them expect to be appreciated. In actuality, good-deed recipients are more often resentful about it, rather than grateful. Nobody likes being the person who has to rely on the good will of others. So do good deeds for your own sake – because it makes you feel better, not because you want to be feel appreciated.

Recreational Bitching

Did you ever notice that some people – maybe more people than not – like to complain about everything? In the summertime, it’s too hot. In the wintertime it’s too cold. Health care is too expensive. Young people are too rude. Old people move too slowly. There ought to be a law against anything and everything that might make one unhappy. It’s recreational bitching, and we all do it to greater or lesser extent. Maybe once in a while, it might make sense to listen to how we talk and how we think. Most of us are just doing the best that we can.