"Bedding..."

My master bedroom sheets and spread were looking a little worn...and I felt that the room needed more color, so when the department store home sale advertisements appeared in Friday's newspaper, I decided to go look for new bedding...

 

I started with one of the "higher end" stores an hour before I was going to attend a dinner party.  The ads spoke of sales of up to 85% off...my kind of numbers!   I arrived an no one else was shopping in the department so my minimally allocated shopping time should have been sufficient.  A friend joined me for the adventure...

 

As I looked at a display of burgundy color sheets, the bedding manager approached to offer assistance, and to make sure I was aware of their one-day sale.  We selected the queen bed fitted and flat sheets and pillowcases. I wanted a rich, masculine "look".  I asked about a spread with the cranberry, gold and beige colors, and she displayed a couple of duvets and shams.  The best choice seemed to be a satin gold base set wit these colors interspersed.  She added that these were on a REALLY good sale!   Then she suggested that a leopard pattern top flat sheet would be a good addition to the grouping.  My friend was very supportive of the manager's selections and meanwhile brought a few more pillow and spread accessories to consider...At the register, the duvet  had been reduced from $450 to $150.  The (2) shams were reduced from $185 to $117, the leopard top sheet was reduced from $142 to $90, and with the fitted sheet and two pillowcases the total was $622! I was shocked as my last "bed in a bag set was purchased on sale for $69, and with my thought processes, this was the price of a week cruise!  "The original price was $1,200 and normally our shoppers pay $2,000 to $4,000 for their bedding!  It is VERY important to have good bedding as you spend 1/3 of your life in bed!  And to make this an even better deal if you apply for our store credit card, you will receive an additional $93 refund to bring your INVESTMENT down to only $529!"  I was now already late for dinner, but I took 15 minutes on the store phone and computer to get approved for their card. I had forgotten to get the $90 "box spring skirt", but as I drove to the dinner, I had already determined that these purchases would be returned by the end of the weekend!

 

Sunday after church and brunch, I went back to a bedding superstore armed with a handful of 20% off coupons, as I knew one coupon would be required for each purchase.  I found the same fitted sheet and pillowcases at a reduced price from $58 to $49 (my Friday sales price for these was $130).  The sales associate approached to show duvets and shams and we determined that none of the inventory "worked".  So I put the sheets on hold and went to a less expensive (than Friday) department store that also was advertising a home sale.  There another associate offered assistance.  I showed my original sheets and bedding, and she brought over a beautiful burgundy and gold Asian set (duvet, shams, skirt and three decorative pillows) that was reduced from $200 to $70 (The Friday store's sales price for these was $823!), and if I used my store charge card another $15% would be subtracted!  I put these on hold too!  Then I went back to the Friday store and the day manager (in the still empty department) approached and asked if I wanted to return a purchase. "I found comparable products at two other store for a substantial savings!"  As the leopard patten flat sheet could not be found in the other stores, and it added to the "total look", I returned everything but it for a new card refund.  "You know that the other less expensive department store owns ours'!  They have 5-day sales when we have 1-day sales and our prices cannot come close!  You are the third (and only) customer today to return purchases after discovering this!"

 

I back tracked and picked up the other held items.  My new total was $200!  I "saved" $739 with two additional hours of shopping...enough for a future vacation!!!

"Even Stevens..."

"Even Stevens"...an expression traced back to 1748 that has come to mean equal measures or fair shares...It became memorable with the "Seinfeld" episode highlighting that whenever something negative happened to Jerry, an equal positive was right around the corner...I believe this...

 

I've heard of periods when the "Mars is in retrograde"...that is characterized by things being"off-balance"...

 

I have to sit back and laugh when a series of "less than positive things" occur...great things are next...Last week was one of those weeks...

 

Friday, tennis partners and I (finally) had time to play...it was sunny everywhere except for right over the slow-drying courts...the time before that we tried to play the weather forecast one half hour before said no chance of rain for the tennis courts location...after we hit two strokes it started to pour for the rest of the evening...

 

I was driving home Saturday morning and I had two choices...pay to drive on the Turnpike or use the free Interstate...expecting no commuting traffic I got on I-95, and came around the corner and traffic was stopped due to a large accident...

 

That night, thinking about the onset of the comfortable fall weather, I decided to take my new bike out of the garage for a ride (not really used after purchasing a new one after the previous one was stolen) the following day...the following day I realized that my home had been robbed again and the new bike was stolen...

 

While I was outside discussing the robbery with my neighbors who had also been robbed at the same time, the sun shined brightly on my re-painted house...it showed that the painters had only painted to as high as they could reach on the first floor for that wall...

 

The following day I went to my morning radiation, (happy that I was half way thru the 9-week regimen and the end was near)  to find that the operating computer system had broken, and then it was still broken the following day to extend the date of the end of the treatment...

 

With newly found available time I decided to go to a meeting...I was first in line as I approached one of our many Intracoastal "draw bridges"...it went up to allow a sailboat to pass under it about ten minutes later, and then it started to close, and nearly made it...then it broke with only a few feet, up, left...it remained in this position (with cars lined up behind me) for an hour, and I missed the meeting...I decided to go to another meeting and the railroad crossing "arms" went down to warn about an approaching (long) freight train...and I missed that meeting too...

 

Before deciding on my radiation therapy, I had been told that I was in such good shape that I would probably not experience negative symptoms like "elimination urgency and frequency"...that was not the case while I waited, unable to move my car!

 

All week my "luck" remained the same...GREAT things are coming!!!



"Heroes..."

 

I think that after our November elections occur, it will be time to replay the London Olympics!  For two weeks, you were able to turn on TV and actually get inspired by "heroes in life", in lieu of having to watch the dollars-wasteful negative election campaign news.

 

Added to this negativity is the media's love of monopolizing on personality weaknesses, by "tearing away" at the characters of perceived heroes.  Penn State top rated coaching staff was caught in  "sexscapades".  Arnold Schwarzenegger promoted his book describing his love child and other unfaithfulness activities toward his wife. Hulk Hogan was next.  Cyclist Lance Armstrong was found to be involved in the largest "doping" network ever.   The list grows daily with the headlines of the local newspapers and television news...

 

Thank goodness for 43 year old Austrian paratrooper Felix Baumgartner's successful "free fall" dive from 23 miles above the earth's surface.  After being lifted in 2.5 hours to that height in a capsule pulled by a lightweight helium balloon, he dove up to 833 miles per hour, to the surface in 9.5 minutes, while visually spiraling out of control!  Thus he became the first man to without equipment travel faster than the speed of light!  And now he states that he is retiring from diving in order to provide emergency helicopter rescues!  His jump experiences and his jumping suit will be used for future hopefully (well-intentioned) scientific advances...



"Our Times..."

This morning I stopped at the gas station that typically sells its gas for one cent less per gallon than the next lowest priced station.  Its location on "the other side of the bridge" reduces its usage. During the last two weeks when I entered to pay the weekly-changing employee (for the lower cash price), I've interrupted their sleep! "How's business?"  "SLOW!"  The station has sold twice to new foreign buyers this year, and was hailed a few years before (when gas was two dollars per gallon less!) when its new owner had acquired and remodeled it, as a full service "neighborhood" convenience and service station.  The sign on the door, said "In order to maintain our lower prices, we have eliminated our attendant positions...Pay by credit card at the pump only".  Note: by paying with credit card, you pay a higher per gallon price!

 

Next to this service station is a restaurant.  It has been rented by three different operators already this year...a grill, an  Italian, and a sushi concepts. For the most recent last few months it had been empty with a "For Rent" sign again.  This week, it had a new banner..."Thai restaurant coming"!  I wonder if each attempting operator had paid first, last and security for the $5,000 per month rent, with their individual dreams of success!

 

One of the corporations that owns a number of the large national restaurant chains, Has cut all of its full-time employees from forty to thirty hours per week...hence a 25% income reduction.  This was done to avoid our new national health care mandate of paying for health insurance for all full-time employees!

 

A year before, our largest local grocery chain had reduced its full-time employees' hours from forty to thirty too.  Due to the "frozen food" competition from "big box" discount chains; and due to the incredible cost escalation of groceries over the last few years, business had reduced! 

 

As a substitute teacher in Westchester, New York in 1978, I was paid $120 per day.  In 1990 in Palm Beach County, I was paid $96 per day.  Current County substitute teachers are paid $78 per day!  And this is gross income, before taxes!!!

 

But, I have noticed an apparent boom of new jobs that would substantiate our latest national government increased employment figures' claims...the "banner  people"!  All along the major roads, people stand in bright outfits holding advertising banners to stop and purchase here...Buy your mattresses, your massage, your pizza, your Halloween costume, your "you name it" here!!!  And these people receive an average of $50 per day, tax free!  This is certainly less stressful than having to spend a day keeping order with our current unruly, undisciplined, children in a classroom!