Attention K-Mart Shoppers

Now, I know that Zirk's Irks is my forum for my personal events, but there is a story that is so wonderful, it bears sharing with a larger audience.  In keeping with my own life experience, it is a story of youth, good intentions, and good intentions gone horribly wrong.

My brother, while he was in college, had a part-time job working at K-Mart.  It wasn't that he sought this particular job out.  It was inevitable that someone in our family would end up working at K-Mart, since they built one directly across the street from the house we grew up in.  Literally.  Across the street.  The story of when they constructed it is the subject for another Irks.  That is a tale of suburban development, of the loss of childhood innocence, and the awakening of a nascent environmental awareness . . . but I digress.

If you ask politely, he'll gladly ramble off their theme song of capitalism:

"Attention, K-Mart shoppers!  For the next 5 minutes you will see the blue light flashing back in the Garden Department where we will have six-foot decorative ficus trees on sale for only $19.99!  Please be sure to head back to the Garden Department and take advantage of this blue-light special, and as always, thank you for shopping at K-Mart!"


My brother worked in the Garden Department, but knew the entire store layout.  Being young and helpful, he noticed a shopper one day wandering back and forth, looking down the aisles forlornly.

"Is there anything I can help you find, ma'am?" he offers.

Sheepishly, he leans in and responds. "I was wondering if you could tell me where I could find the tacks."

Since the Hardware Department was adjacent to the Garden Department, he knew exactly where they were.  Wanting to hone her search ever further, he inquires, "The kind you push in with your thumb, or the kind you hit with a hammer?"  

His arm flails back and forth, miming the action of hammering.

No sooner did he say this when two things happened simultaneously.  All the color drained from the shopper’s stunned face.  And my brother's over-eager synapses caught up and processed what the shopper had really asked for.  

She wasn't looking for thumbtacks.  She was looking for Tampax.

Realizing the error of his initial response, he blurts out, "They're a few aisles over, near the Pharmacy!" and beat an hasty retreat.

He never did find out which particular ones she needed.  He assumed that a hammer would not be necessary.  But he could tell her where they were.  If she wanted. 

Life In the Drive-Thru

Sometimes it takes something as banal and ubiquitous as a trip through the McDonald's drive thru to reveal a facet of your life and personality you never realized.
Running uncharacteristically ahead of schedule the other morning, I decided I had time to stop for the most American of early morning treats, the Egg McMuffin combo meal.
Many who know me know that I stop quite often at drive-thrus.   While not overweight, I do have all of the invisible killers no one would suspect.  High blood pressure and high cholesterol are kept in check by baby doses of medication, freeing me from the concern of what damage the occasional Egg McMuffin would wreak on my system.  Often, as I got the evil eye from my wife as I ordered something hideously unhealthy at a restaurant, I would waggle my eyebrows, raise a finger and proclaim, "Zocor to the rescue!".
So I veered through the drive-thru and placed my order.
"I'll have a #1 Breakfast Combo Meal, please.  With a milk."
(While I cared not for the effects of cholesterol on my body, I did try to make sure I got enough calcium, as a fractured femur two years ago alerted me to another invisible malady I had lurking beneath my skin:  low bone density.  But that's a story for another Irks.)
I pay the cashier and pull forward and get my food.  As I pull into traffic, I peek in the bag to make sure all is as ordered.  Hash browns, milk and wrapped muffin-shaped food ball stared back at me.
It wasn't until I unwrapped my breakfast food ball that I realized that they screwed up my order, and gave me a breaded chicken biscuit instead.
Now, I was aware of the fact that McDonald's had these sandwiches for lunch, but not that they had incorporated them into their breakfast menu.  Being hungry, and several blocks away from the restaurant, I had a dilemma:  return and rectify the order, or make due and eat the mystery sandwich?
So, I ate the mystery sandwich.
Which brings me to the point of the story.  Which was worse?  The fact that the crack drive-thru staff couldn't fill the most basic of orders, in what had to have been one of at least 1000 Egg McMuffins processed that morning?  Or, the fact that despite not filling my order correctly, I still opted to shove that Egg McMuffin analog food ball down my pie hole?
 If there were enough people like me out there, what incentive did the drive-thru staff have to improve their service?
I can hear them conversing now.  "It doesn't matter what you put in the bag for the drive-thru orders, as long as you are in the ballpark.  No one ever comes back and argues.  These slobs will eat whatever you put in front of them!"
Which I did.  I just wish I had ordered an extra milk, as the biscuit was forming a concrete-like paste on the back of my teeth.  Next time I'll make two milks part of my order.  Then I'll be ready for whatever McDonald's throws at me.

Because you know I'll eat it.

Don't be a Lurker

One nice tool on blogspot is that you can become a member of a blog.  That way you can get updated automically when something new comes on the scene.
Just click the link to the right and join.  Don't be a lurker!  Be a ZirksIrks-er!  Show your support and become a member!

Statistically Happy

Imagine my surprise and delight when a Chicago Tribune article finally answered the age-old question of "What does it take to make people happy?"

According to Keirsey research, an organization that looks at how personality relates to a person's preferences, when they surveyed 3,900 people from 18 to 70 they found the following:

• Extroverts are happier than introverts.  Extroverts recharge through being in contact with people.   Introverts recharge themselves through solitary time. 

Are you the straw that mixes the drink socially, or the angst-filled poet that longs to be with your thoughts?
Me, I'm both.  I love being with people, then retreating to my world and blogging about it.  My wife definitely is an extrovert, until the next morning, when the hangover makes her an introvert. 

• People making $75,000 or more were happier than those who made $50,000 or less.  For the people surveyed, $75,00 was the tipping point.  More money did not mean more happiness, but having enough money certainly helps a lot.

So THAT"S what I was missing in my life - money! Just a few more auctions on eBay and I'll be happy!

• For relationships, people who are engaged are the happiest, whereas people who are separated but not divorced are the least happy.  Married people are somewhat happier than divorced people, but even they have average happiness. 

Of course engaged people are the happiest!  Their life is a new blank page lying before them.  Life hasn't worn them down and disillusioned them with its cruel mirage of higher expectations.  And for people who are separated but not divorced, of course they are the least happy.  They haven't gotten rid of the dead weight of a failed relationship and moved on with their life. 
I am intrigued by the fact that divorced people are almost as happy as married people.  You would hope that after the pain of divorce, you would be happier than married people.  The advice you could draw from this survey is that if you are divorced and want to be happier than your married friends, get engaged!  Hope springs eternal.  Just find someone who is outgoing, and makes over $75,000 a year.

So there you go, your road map to happiness.  Now get out there and enjoy life!  And if you aren't happy, you can't blame me!