I am altering some curtains for my son’s room and I needed some thread and other things for the job.  We stopped by Wal-Mart today to pick up the few items I needed.  For once, it was a quick stop in the store.  No browsing around!

When I got to the tills, all of a sudden, Wal-Mart was packed with people.  I find that the cashes nearest the doors are usually less packed so I headed down there.  I finally settled on cash 5, I think it was, and was dismayed to see a certain cashier at the check-out.  This guy has been cranky with us in the past, so we generally avoid him. 

But I was already in the queue and decided that I could put up with a bit of crankiness.

When it became my turn, the cashier started ringing my items through.  Without a ‘hello’ or so much as a glance up at me.  I leaned in and greeted him.  “Oh, hi,” he said, and continued ringing up my three items.

In the middle of all this, he glanced up and noticed the woman behind me had only 2 small items and that she was holding them.  He curtly instructed her to put the items on the belt and to use one of those divider bars to seperate her items from mine.  The lady looked a bit shocked at being commanded to put her items down but did as she was told.

The woman behind her, hearing what the cashier had said, started quickly laying her own items on the belt.  Another divider was laying on the belt, apparently not being used.  She grabbed it and lay it behind the first lady’s items.

“No,” Cranky Cashier reprimanded, “that one needs to stay where it was.  It’s helping to keeping the belt straight.”  Huh?  What the hell does that mean?  But OK, whatever you say, buddy.

So Lady #2 puts the bar back and simply stands there looking awkward.

Cranky Cashier turns his attention back to my purchase and tells me that it comes to $3.12.  (Hey, big spender!)  I hand him 2 toonies, a dime and 2 pennies.  I tell him how much I’ve given him ($4.12) because I fear not getting my loonie and having to bicker with(read: kick the crap out of) this cranky cashier.  As I hand him the change, some of it falls amongst the bags.  He glances down, easily retrieves one penny, counts the change in his hand and tells me that I owe him a penny.

It fell among the bags, I wanted to tell him, but simply couldn’t be bothered.  I handed him another penny, accepted my loonie change and quickly left him behind.

I work with the public and I always, always make it my priority to greet people and to be polite and kind.  Why can’t Wal-Mart staff do the same?  I rarely get greeted when I walk up to a cash there and often come close to having an associate roll their eyes when I ask for help finding something.

But they must be doing something right: I keep going back.

There are several grocery stores in Cornwall and, like everyone else, we have our favorite.  The one we got to most frequently is Food Basics, because it’s a lot less expensive than the other stores.  There are two FBs in town - one on Brookdale and one on Second - so there’s always an alternative in case we fancy a change.

But we do find that the Independent store on 9th has a nice, big freezer section, providing a much better selection of meal ideas.  And I must admit that we do often look for new and interesting meals because we tend to buy the same things every week to make the same 7 meals.

So, the pros and cons of each store?  Like I said, FB is cheap, it’s big and there are two of them.  We know the layout of the store and we know where to find everything.  The staff have always been friendly and we only occasionally find an error on the receipt.

The Independent store is even bigger.  Big freezer section, huge fruit and veg section, cooked chicken, a KFC-style meal area, a deli counter, pharmacy, a bank machine, a photo developer, a post office and more.  As I typed that last sentence, it struck me that the Independent really is an “everything” store.  But you pay for those services.

Anyway, the point of this post really was to highlight the differences between the two stores’ own brands.  For FB, it’s Master’s Choice and for the Independent, it’s President’s Choice.  These brands are always cheaper than the big name brands so that is normally the ones we go for. 

For quality and taste and quantity, I would chose FB’s Master’s Choice every time.

For example, for breakfast every morning, I like a bowl of Frosties.  Or Frosted Flakes, if you’re going for the real thing.  Master’s Choice does a big, family-sized box.  They cleverly split the cereal between two bags within the same box, which helps to preserve the freshness.  The cereal tastes just like the real thing and I can honestly say that I couldn’t tell the difference.

The Independent’s President’s Choice version of the same cereal offers the same prize box but in only one bag.  And it tastes real weird.  I don’t like it at all.  My stepdaughter likes Frosties too and she turned her nose up at it.

The same would apply to the Bran cereal that Hubby likes.  FB’s brand are great, he says, but the President’s Choice ones he’d rather go without.

So we tend to head to Food Basic on a weekly basis and to the Independent when we fancy getting a few frozen meals to fill the freezer.

Today, we made the hour and a bit drive into Ottawa to do a bit of shopping.  The journey is pretty straightforward from Cornwall - up the 138 to the 417 West - and voila, you’re there.  I have my G1 license now (yup, at the ripe old age of 34), so I am allowed to drive on roads sign-posted at 80 or below.  So I drove the Route 138 bit and Hubby did the highway driving.

For our shopping spree, we chose the St-Laurent Centre because it’s closer and easier to get to than the larger and more exciting Rideau Centre.  If you ever get the chance, the Rideau Centre is a great mall and runs alongside the canal and is only a block or so away from the Parliament Building.  Stunning on a bright summer’s day.

I digress.

We arrived at the St-Laurent Centre with our tummies growling and headed directly for the food court.  They have a decent selection there, but we chose to eat our usual fair of burgers and fries courtesy of A&W. 

The food court was packed.  It is Saturday, afterall, and lunchtime.  There were people roaming around with trays, looking for a place to eat.  We never hang around at a table longer than we need to because we have two young children who are completely impatient and today was no different.  Immediately upon finishing, we started gathering our debris and dumping it on the tray. 

At this point, a woman appears who obviously works there.  She has a spray bottle in one hand and a rag in the other.  She coos at the kiddies, helps us gather our stuff and even offers to dump the tray for us.  Ah, how sweet.

But gathering up children and all the paraphenalia that goes along with them, like sippy cups, wipes, rusks for the baby, etc, is a tough and time-consuming job.  I lifted one of our bags to put it on the table to start filling it and this woman started spraying the table to clean it for the next customers to use.  She basically took over the table and left me standing there holding a baby, a bag, a bottle, and god knows what else.

Now, I do see myself as being a very reasonable person.  I don’t purposelly try to anger or frustate people and I don’t set out to be difficult. But I was not going to rushed off of this table.  I dumped my stuff back on the table and sat my son down again so that I could get his shoe back on.

That sure put an end to her wiping!

Like I said, I wasn’t trying to be difficult.  I could see that people were waiting for tables, but I found what she did to be rude.  She just needed to stand back for about 30 seconds and we’d have been on our way feeling a lot less ticked off.

Me?  I love it.  I’ve had very few problems with Wordpress and it installs like a charm.  Easy as pie, in fact.  I’ve heard about people having troubles with it and some swear by Wordpress alternatives, but I’ve used Wordpress before and I’ll use it again.

What is Wordpress?  It is the application that I am using to create this blog on my own webspace.  It is free and completely customizable.  And there are literally oodles of themes out there to choose from.  Find one you like, upload it to your space and then change the colors, images and layouts to suit your tastes.  I like to keep my themes simple and I felt that this design suited me to a T.  I changed everything to red, my favorite color, and added a beautiful picture of Marilyn Monroe (just because she’s pretty).  I tweaked the code here and there and now I’m pleased with how it looks.

The only trouble that I’ve experience with Wordpress was that an embed YouTube video could be viewed correctly in Internet Explorer but completely messed up the page in Mozilla.  But I am not sure whether that was an issue with a particular theme or whether that was Wordpress as a whole.

My next post will have an embedded video.  If the video stays, it’s because it works just fine in both browsers.  If you check back and there’s no video, well, there’s your answer.

… or maybe it’s just this theme. Grrr.

Yup, we live in Ontario in Canada.  In Cornwall, to be exact.  And today, hubby and I took the kiddies to McDonald’s for lunch, as we occasionally do.  We like going there because we feel like the food is tasty and not over-the-top expensive.  A meal there is cheaper than a meal at, say, Wendy’s, Harvey’s or KFC.  But I would say that, on the whole, we enjoy a meal at Wendy’s the best.  Hubby likes replacing his fries with the chilli (yuck) and we find the burgers more sustantial that McD’s.

Anyway, at around 1pm today, we parked outside the McDonald’s on Brookedale in Cornwall and went inside.  We ordered our usual, a few cheeseburgers and some fries and one drink (hubby and I share a drink).

(Actually, as I typed that last sentence, I realize how cheeky we were in just ordering one drink.  You see, hubby and I always share a drink when we get fast food because neither of us ever finish a whole one.  But this McDonald’s offer free refills.  So they probably watch hubby and I drink from the same cup.  Then I did something I have never done before:  I took advantage of the free refill and filled my cup before we left.  It hadn’t occured to me at the time, because we always share, but looking back, I can see the cheekiness of our actions.  I digress…)

One of the managers or supervisors or something at this particular McDonald’s never smiles.  No matter how many times we go in, no matter what time of day, and no matter whether we smile broadly at her.  Nothing.  She just frowns and I can’t understand it.  I also work with the public, as a cashier in a large store and I smile all the time.  And I mean that.  I smile at everyone and I say ‘hello’ and I ask if they help finding anything.  That’s my job and I do it well, I believe.

When I was about 18, I remember being snotty when I worked with the public.  I worked at KFC and at the airport in Montreal.  But I was 18!  I was immature and I thought that the world owed me something.  But I’m older now - 35 in November (yikes!) - and I know better than to treat people, especially paying customers, in that way.

This woman at McDonald’s looks to be in her 40’s.  She should know better.  And if she doesn’t, her boss should be offering extra training.  And if that doesn’t work, my empathy ends there.  As a paying customer myself, I don’t need to see that long face while I order.

Maybe we should start going to the one on Second Street instead.