Sephy’s Platzish

So, on Monday, I mentioned that I’d have something about a toy that I’d be getting this week. So far, I’ve gotten nothing. Well, that’s actually a lie because I did get the thing that I wanted to get so that I could save on this thing.

What is it, you ask? A digital to analog TV converter box of which there is a program underwritten by the US Government to subsidize the cost of the boxes to the effect of upwards of $80 (2 $40 coupons per household).

What had spurred me on to applying for the coupons in the first place was the appearance of the boxes in the local Wal-Mart store. I had noticed them at the beginning of March, on the day when I was doing the test drive to and from work, and we stopped at the store which I pass every day to check it out.

When I first saw them, they literally had stacks and stacks of the boxes. At the time, I thought that they would be in plentiful supply for quite some time. Since seeing them at first, and seeing them in a whole bunch of other stores, I didn’t think anything about it until I received my coupons on Tuesday (I knew that they were coming because the site said that they were sent out on Friday or so), and I had an item on my list that said I’d look at getting the box after work.

So, I stop at Wal-Mart on my way home from work. I had an inkling (from other stores disappearing the boxes in recent days) that they might not have any out, but I checked anyway, expecting to just walk in and walk out with a box for $10 after the coupon.

I get to the electronics section, and there’s nothing. Zip, zilch, nada. Even the display unit has disappeared. I go to ask the clerk in the area, and they make a comment that they’re sold out, but might have some on Thursday or early next week.

Just a side note here - you can tell I want something when I have this unending desire to get it. Do you want an example of this? Well, at midnight, I called up the store which had just opened up in the area.

Lesson 1: Don’t call Wal-Mart at midnight.

Why? Well, you tend to get some of the densest folks in the store. I call them and ask if they have the digital converter boxes. I get put on hold, and after a minute or so, the person comes back and asks if I’m meaning for an audio system. In the end, as far as I can tell, they don’t sell them there. I’d just guess they’re out as well.

We get to Thursday, and I need to go over to another city to pick up some medicine from my clinic, so I decide to make a pit stop at the Wal-Mart there (they’re like viruses, in just about any city now [but not as bad as Walgreen's, which appear on every street corner {I pass 2 on my way to work every day}]). I head over to the electronics department, and they actually have a box there. Well, not exactly. It is just a display model with a clock ticking down to February 19th, the switch off date for analog TV. Any boxes? Nope. Any in the back? Nope.

So, I go back to the first store which said they might have one Thursday night. They don’t have any, but fortunately, the gal remembers me from Tuesday night, and mentions one important thing - they are backordered. They don’t have any at the store, and even the distribution centre is having a backlog of orders as well, and the next time they might have some available is unknown.

Lesson 2: Do stop at a Wal-Mart early in the morning.

This brings us to Friday morning, and since I have an hour or so between when I arrive and when I start to volunteer, I decided to head down to the Wal-Mart that is about 3 miles south of where I was to see if they had any. The setup was the same as the second store I went to - display unit with countdown clock. No other display, no boxes. I decided to skip over the folks at the electronics counter because I was listening to the reason for stopping at Wal-Mart at 7AM: the Wal-Mart Radio network. They were reading out a list of employees who had worked for them for 20 plus years. It was a simple format - Employee name at store number in city name, x years. It was such a fascinating thing to listen to  because of all the numbers they just roll off in such a short succession. Plus, it was completely content-free radio. Just names read out by some guy, along with some music (which he claimed was requested music).

I get to the door, and strike up a chat with the greeter (because frankly, there ain’t much going on at 7am in a Wal-Mart which has just opened), and I mentioned the converter boxes. She said that they didn’t have any, but I should try the store I had tried (I explained what I was told), along with one that was, well, just too far out of the way

She then mentioned that she had cable and was OK with the conversion to digital, which is completely true. I’m safe with it as well, but the biggest reason that I want the box is all the channels that you don’t get on cable (luckily she has the same cable company as I do so she can appreciate it ). She also made a comment along the lines that I observed - in March, they had stacks and stacks with no clue what to do with them. Now, you can’t find them.

It’s like they’re disappearing like they’re going out of style!

Yesterday, we had to run to Target to pick up some photos that we had printed professionally - trust me, it cost a lot less to print them professionally than to print them at home - 136 pix printed (with same day pickup) for $28 - compared to having to buy probably at least two or 3 color cartridges at $15 or so each, and probably a black cartridge at $6 - plus having to buy some more paper, you can see the logic behind getting professional printing done.

Anyway, as we were perusing the stuff in the store, I looked at the cards section, and they had something I had never seen before - political cards. They had a couple of cards featuring Barack Obama - one was with him in a mockup of what you’d see on the Oprah magazine, with headlines like “How to Spend Liberally to look Conservative” and other little plays on words. Another card they had that sticks in my mind was one featuring our ever-so-smart President and Vice President. Let me put it they way they did it (at least in my memory) -

Cheney: Good news sir. We are getting more than 100 Brazilians to assist us.
Bush: That is great news. (Card flip)
Bush: How much is a Brazillion?

The last line is “A Brazillion wishes to you on your Birthday.” Personally, I think it’s quite brilliant, though I know that there are some diehards in the right wing who will split a vein over it. To them, I simply say be less serious about everything.

Anyway, we then went towards the kitchenware section, where I saw what has to be the most ridiculous thing ever for a kitchen - an avocado slicer. Yes, who needs a spoon and a knife when you can buy one thing that is only good for one task and costs quite a bit more than you’d pay for a spoon and a knife - $12.95 at Target?

The last thing we went to was the soft drinks aisle - while I don’t drink soda anymore, except for the odd taste here and there - my mom still does, but she’s been converted to Coke. We saw that they had them for 3 for $9 for 12 packs, and as I was putting them into the cart, I said, somewhat half-heartedly, that I wouldn’t be surprised if the store closest to us would have them at $2.75 each for sale this week.

As it so happens, we get the Wednesday circulars, and lo and behold, one store has Coke on sale for just that price - 4 for $11 ($2.75 each).

I tell ya, sometimes I feel like freakin’ Nostradamus!

This week’s Hump Day Hmm is all about school. There are a lot of stories that I could tell about my days at school, but I want to take a different look at going back - the school supply list. It’s one of those things that are a big flashing sign to tell you that it’s time to go back; they have the lists available at most major stores now, unlike in my day when they’d just mail you a list and you’d get on with it.

Of course, this is designed for the parent who lost their shopping list sometime during the summer (or for the parent of the kids who didn’t want to go back to school…I remember being terrified about going back to school for the second grade, each year after that got better though…until college ;)), but anyone walking by can grab one, two or half a dozen.

I can not honestly remember ever having a list of things required for school as long as they have for this school year. Of all the junk I’ve kept over the years, I’ve not kept my school supplies lists, but I’m going to try to do a comparison based on what I recall.

4K

This stands for 4-year-old Kindergarten. When I started school, they had a different term for this - “preschool”. I didn’t go to preschool, but I’m guessing that the required supplies were minimal - maybe a small bookbag and the occasional snack for the class.

Now, you have schools giving these toddlers (really, I think 4-year-olds are still toddlers) lists of items to bring in that include scissors, folders, backpacks, and even glue sticks. There’s one school that is giving parents the option of bringing in gift cards to Wal-Mart for photo processing. Last time I checked, photo processing at Wal-Mart cost 19¢ per photo - 100 photos would then be $19. It makes me wonder how many photos they’re going to print out over the year…

Kindergarten

I think when I went to kindergarten, we might have had to have a backpack, but it was rarely, if ever, used. We might have needed to bring in a pack of crayons, but other than that I don’t remember a big shopping list like they have today. Then again, when I was in Kindergarten, it was only in the afternoon, not an all-day affair like you have today.

I think it’s mostly due to that single change to all-day school that the schools are now asking for a list of items that you would normally see for first grade, or even second grade. The schools are now asking for kids to bring in upwards of 25 glue sticks (the rationale is that buy them now when they’re cheap - that makes sense actually; it’s something you see across many of the supply lists).

As you move up through the grades, there are some interesting similarities. For example, in first grade, schools are now asking that the pencils all be sharpened so that the teachers can give out pencils as the students use them. During the six weeks I was in first grade (which is a story for another day ;)), I was allowed to have my own pencils; if we needed a new one, we just got up and sharpened it, if it was a new pencil, we just had to sharpen it for a bit longer.

I also remember that by the time I was in third grade, we were allowed to have erasable pens - blue or black, however, most of us chose to stick to pencils; now, you have to be in 5th grade before being allowed a blue or black pen, but if you’re in 4th grade, you have to have a red pen (or pencil). Ahh, the days of “hand your paper to the person behind you; here are the answers”. I don’t know if it was just me, or a lot of people, but there was a distinct style of writing 100 on a paper - you made the one, and then wrote the “00″ as if it were two capital Os, making something that looked like this -

Another trend that I’ve noticed is that schools are now asking for color coded folders. What happened to getting just x number of folders? I remember getting folders of different colors, then labeling them with the subject; we all used different colors, and different designs. I guess that the concept of individuality is now frowned upon in schools?

Moving up to Middle School - grades 6-8 in my area - you have pretty much the same requirements as elementary school, but there are some added items. For example, they tell you the exact calculator you are to have for school - TI-30X IIS Advanced Scientific, needed for all 3 years; I had a Casio calculator that did the same things; I bet it was cheaper as well.

In 6th grade, you need to have a 3-ring zipper binder (so much for all the prohibitions of trapper keepers for all the previous years, now they tell you that you need one!), also 2 dry erase markers and a set of highlighters. 7th graders are required to bring 2 inch-and-a-half binders, a compass, graph paper, and a composition notebook. In 8th grade, you need to have two binders - one at 1½ inches, one at 2 inches. They also require a jump drive - at least they haven’t said how big it has to be, but it is an improvement over a floppy disk.

I think I made it through middle school using maybe 2 binders - a small one in 6th grade, then a larger one in 8th grade. Interestingly, there is no prohibition on the type of paper that students can bring for middle school - it used to be that you were only allowed to have wide rule (and it is still that way for students in elementary school). Of course, I always went to college rule since it was more efficient, and my teachers never made an issue of it

Fortunately, by the time you get to high school, there are no lists of things to bring for class. You’re pretty much expected to have a general idea of what to bring. If you’re needed to bring other supplies in, the teacher tells you. As it is, one of the common restrictions - no wheels - was one that I ignored in high school, being one of the first with a wheeled backpack (which I later abandoned for a more traditional bookbag, one that I use every day now when I go out to walk).

What I’d love to know is what were you asked to bring to school when you were there - was it the laundry list, or just bring the basics? If you have kids in school now, do the required items seem ridiculous compared to when you were in school?

We had to make a quick run to the local grocery store - one which has not changed much over the six years that they’ve been open for business in this location - to find that they’ve gone and changed a lot of things around. They must have had a consultant come in and tell them that the current layout wasn’t working out for them.

Personally, I think a lot of the “soul” has been taken out of the store since they took out a couple of the things that made it unique. You might need a diagram to figure this out, so I’ll put one at the bottom of the post; it’s not that great of a drawing, but it will do.

The first thing that they did was to make all the non-frozen aisles straight. Originally, the store had the pet products section in its own, for the lack of a better term, alcove. On the other side they had the health and beauty section (noticeably lacking any aromatherapy products). It all worked for six years. Now, they’ve gone and made all those aisles straight like almost every single other store in the area.

The other major cosmetic change that they made was to take out a set of diagonal aisles where they had the bread, magazines, and more recently, a $1 section; again, something that had been there for six years.

And as you may expect, they moved a lot of stuff around in the store, making some, shall we say, interesting pairings. For example, all the prepackaged meal kits (like the bake-in-bag high sodium chicken, and the other pre-mixed seasoning packets), have been moved from their location near the meat to the other end of the store by the bakery, next to the relocated bread. In its place, they put the school and office supplies.

Then, they put all the $1 stuff in the same aisle as the coffee and tea, which was moved to the other side of the frozen foods from where they originally were. They also took a display of supplements and put them in the aisle with the other vitamins and painkillers. I can’t actually remember many of the other specifics right now, but I do know that they didn’t add aromatherapy products to their stocks - I made sure to check fairly thoroughly.

My initial reaction? Waah, I don’t like change, why’d you have to change it, where the hell is the bread? etc. I think it’ll take about 6 weeks or so to get readjusted to the new product placements, and I won’t have a problem with it anymore. Now, if they’d just quit raising prices all the time - considering that we paid $6.39 for 16 ounces (just under 500ml) of extra virgin olive oil, and the price of a lot of other stuff is up as well - things might not be so bad…

The old store

The new layout, it’s not quite done yet, and in both images, I missed the cereal aisle. (and I can’t be bothered to put it in there - it’s between the soup and the spices ;))