Had some adventures with the new normal today.
My verdict? It sucks.
First, Julian was kind enough to drive me to my bank so I could cash my monthly check. First, I was stopped by a door by a lady who wanted to ask me the standard questions about whether I had been out of the country or come in contact with anyone who blah blah blah etcetera.
And that’s fine. I am fine with being asked a few questions before I bring my viral load into a public building.
But this lady’s accent was so thick that I could barely understand a single word she was saying. So what might have been a short one minute pause turned into five long minutes of frantic gesticulating and stress as I tried really hard to understand her.
It’s not entirely on her. Age is catching up with my hearing and that means I sometimes have trouble understanding people who are speaking flawless unaccented English.
People have started to “mumble”, subjectively speaking. Age related hearing loss starts at the top of the audible frequency range and works its way down over time. That’s why only people under a certain age (25, I think) can hear the “mosquito tone” that was all the rage for a while back in the day.
And like I have said before, the tiny noises and pauses we use to tell where one word ends and the next begins are very high frequency, and so that’s the first really noticeable thing to go in most people, starting at around 45 years of age.
So sometimes things come across to me as one long cluster of incomprehensible phonemes and I have to get people to repeat themselves and a nun ci ate ver y slow ly and care ful ly.
And I hate that. I hate having to break the flow of conversation. I hate have to make young people go slow just for my sad old self.I hate feeling helpless about it.
And it only gets worse from here folks!
Anyhow, so I make it into the bank, and they have these circles on the floor to show you where to stand in line so people stay six feet apart. Plus, they have these clear plastic partitions in front of each teller to protect them, I assume, from errant coughs.
So that was slightly alienating.
Then I get to Pricemart and I am about to go in when a security guard tells me there’s a lineup and points me in the right general direction. I follow the lineup and it stretches all the way around the side of the building, for fuck’s sake.
I assume they are practicing neutral occupancy – people can only go in when others go out, one for one.
So I had to wait in line, in the cold, for fifteen minutes before I even got in the damned store. Then I had to do my usual shopping.
And that sucked. I should not be on my feet for that long even in the best of conditions, let alone out in the cold, with the cold making my muscles contract.
So I got lots of pains and cramps in my legs now.
Something tells me that I will be ordering my groceries online from now until all this mishigas is over. Either that, or getting stuff from 7-11.
Good ol 7-11. They just put down a bunch of plastic containers in front of the checkout counter making it physically impossible to get within 6 feet of the cashier.
Simple,. rugged, practical solutions. God how I love them.
More after the break.
Where’d my money go? I just dunno. It really makes me tense.
God fucking dammit.
So I got to the bank today, deposited a big fat $600 on my card, and decided that to celebrate, I was going to order in tonight.
I should have known better.
So I go back to my beloved Skip the Dishes, having forgiven them for not letting me do cash orders any more for something that was beyond my control.
Still a little pissed off about that, but too hungry to care for the most part.
So I put together my order of Lamb Vindaloo with Rice and 2 samosas, and go to pay, and it says there’s a payment error.
Mother FUCKER. God damn it, even in the future nothin’ works. Why am I cursed to be denied when I try to order food?
Did I piss off the god of delivery at some point?
So I carefully re-input all my credit card info on the theory that maybe Skip had my old credit card info and I hadn’t updated it when I got my new card.
Nope. Same result.
So I go to make sure the money is actually there byh checking the balance on my reloadable VISA and lo and behold, it says my balance is $8.98,
Well there’s your fucking payment problem. The money ain’t there! I was trying to pay for $30 worth of Indian food with $9 worth of balance.
Now the easiest thing to do at that point would be to panic, because um, where the fuck is my $600, assholes?
But I have been through this before, so I did not panic. Much.
For whatever arcane banking reason, sometimes the transactions on my card don’t actually post until the next day.
Keeps the customers on their toes, I suppose.
And it helps to remember that I was in the bank minutes before it closed at 3 pm. So if ever there was a time when things might have to wait until tomorrow, that was it.
So for now, I am willing to wait until tomorrow. I will check my balance tomorrow afternoon and if the $600 is there. boffo, everything is five by five, no problemo.
If it isn’t there. THEN I will panic.
It’s nice to have these things planned out in advance, I find.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.