Time Flies

As we all know, time flies when you're having fun! So I'll start with tonight and work backward (what else is new?).

I know, I know, no good deed goes unpunished. So I'm motoring down Rte. 91 heading to Costco to pick up lunch for 50 people. I offered to pick up the food for our union meeting tomorrow.

My phone rings and I can't hear a thing. It rings again and I can't hear anything. Meanwhile, I had already realized that if I dialed voice mail, I couldn't hear it. So my phone's fubar.

I get to Costco with my flyer which proclaims, "Get a $10 gift card from Costco if you re-up your membership before July 3." (See, Mom, I can remember some things -- I remembered to bring the coupon!) Mary takes my brand spanking new Costco Citi card which was activated yesterday.

"Oh! Your card has a stolen number."
"What? How can that be? Someone must have hacked into your system, I have never used this card before."
"You must have come here and reported your card stolen."
"No, I didn't."  

I'll spare you a bunch of frustrating dialogue, and say that I finally figured out that Mary was saying (without using words) that the Citi card people had put the wrong Costco account number on my new Costco charge card (they dropped Amex so we all had to change to this card).

After much button pushing and muttering, Mary tells me I have to call "them" to get them to fix the number. When I asked how come I had to call them when Costco had made the mistake she said,
"We don't talk to them. They made the mistake. You came in here and reported the card lost or stolen."

A light bulb goes on in my head, "I heard you the first time when you said that. I did not come here and report my Costco card stolen. A few months ago, I reported my Amex card stolen."
"That's when they put the wrong Costco number on your card. It will work on the register, don't worry."

She gives me the new number and I toddle off looking for pre-made sandwiches for 50.  You guessed it: they only had one kind of roll up that didn't look too fresh or sandwiches made with croissants. (I had those in Boston and they were awful.) So now I have to go look for the cold cuts and bread. I wouldn't have minded so much, but I had to get to the Library before they closed in order to put the food in the fridge there. Those potato salad buckets are BIG and would not have fit in my fridge.

I finally get to the register. The card does not work. I tell Nick my story. He's confused as to what he should do. I give him the correct "new" number. He punches a lot of buttons and gets the card to work. 

I zip to the Library and get there 4 minutes before 8 p.m. They close the lower level at 8. Jose, bless him, lets me use the elevator. I open the "recently" cleaned fridge to find rotting watermelon in a bowl on the top shelf and the whole bottom level is covered with seltzer and apple juice. Luckily, I fit everything on the top shelf, minus the watermelon.

Leaving, I see an old friend and chat a bit about mysteries before leaving, thinking, "I still have to get mustard and mayo so maybe I should stop at Home Depot and return the garage door opener that doesn't work. Oh, wait, Verizon is right there, I'll go there first and see if they will fix my phone."

I tool down to Verizon and happily begin to cruise into a parking space. For grins, I read the hours on the door. They close at 8 p.m. It was 8:20 p.m.

I cross the street to Home Depot and go to the returns desk. I see Bruce heading away from the desk and the other person is tied up with a complicated something. So I wait, patiently.

Bruce strolls back to the register.
"I'd like to return this garage door opener." Meanwhile, I look at the receipt inwardly gulping because I had no idea that I had paid $33!

"Is there something wrong with it?"
"It doesn't work." He gives me a "how dumb are you?" look.
"Is there something wrong with it or does it not open only your door."
"I don't know. I didn't try to open anybody else's door."

He must have realized how the conversation was going because he said, 'See, if it's broken I have to give it a code.' He not only gave it a code, but he also gave it a green sticker!

By now, I'm a bit weary. After work, I had come home and put on shorts but didn't eat a real supper. Anyway, as I cruise around the Home Depot lot (apparently, it's too simplistic to put a sign that says THIS WAY OUT), I'm thinking, "I'll go to Whole Foods and get mayo and mustard for tomorrow. Oh, wait. Do they actually HAVE mayo? As in made with eggs and oil and preservatives.  We're talking rank and file tastes here.

Then it dawns on me: Walmart is even closer! And while we don't have one with a supermarket, they do have some necessities such as cookies and chips. (Give me a break -- it's the Five College area.) I'll bet they have mayo and mustard!

I grab mayo (Hellman's no less) and two kinds of mustard. I got little jars but I couldn't just buy yellow mustard (which I don't like at all) so the second kind is Polish spicy brown mustard. And I walk rapidly to the register where a young couple is putting about 15 items on the register conveyor belt.

"New apartment?" I asked. "Sort of." They are both RAs at Umass and they have a shared kitchen.  Holly rings everything up and then the female says, "I have a tax exempt credit card." 

Holly looks like she is about to cry and begins to stutter saying, "I should have put that number in first and then rung the items up." She looks so distressed as if she is about to faint that I said, "Breathe. It will be o.k."

So she calmed down and figured she could get Bill to fix it. She calls him on the phone and we wait for him to come to the register. And we wait. And we wait. By the way, Holly is the ONLY cashier. And we wait some more. Unfortunately, Bill cannot make it all better and Holly will have to re-ring the items.

Luckily, Bill takes me and the people behind me at another register. I hand him my American Express that I was not going to use, but that's where the Home Depot guy had put my credit. The card was declined. Yes, the card that just happily took a $33 credit was declined. The card with a zero balance (I paid it off two days ago) was declined. I whipped out another card and all was well. I'm thinking that I need to dig out the new Amex card I got -- but it doesn't have my picture on it ... 

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Last weekend, I had the privilege of being a delegate to the Massachusetts United Church of Christ Annual Meeting. It was exhilarating and tiring and I loved it. We voted on some policy issues and the budget, we had some preaching, and an actual church service with communion (for about 200 people). 

When we entered the main auditorium (at UMass Campus Center), there was a huge Scrabble board with the word BOLD on it. I'm talking about ten feet by ten feet. Each letter might have been 8 inches tall. Toward the beginning, they had a video on a big screen that consisted of frame by frame shots of Scrabble tiles moving to form words. (It got really annoying after three minutes and it seemed to go on forever.) After each section of the conference, they added words to the giant Scrabble board.  

I loved the networking lunch where I met people from all over the state. Our table's topic was integrating new members with long time members.

We had a special guest preacher from Chicago -- the Reverend Moss III. He was funny when he thanked us for inviting him to the Annual Meeting and Scrabble Convention.

And there were 4 rooms (your room corresponded to a section of the alphabet which contained the first letter of your last name, although I'm sure if you used the last letter of your first name, no one would have been the wiser) and each room had people who would speak and tell their story. 

The first story I heard was from a gay man from Uganda. Did you know that gay people are put to death in Uganda? I didn't. His story was compelling and horrible. It included his being tossed into jail and tortured and raped. He got out somehow to find out that his house had been burned down, killing his partner. He finally made his way to Worcester, MA where a UCC church took him in. They have sponsored 130 such refugees from many foreign places. 

There were many more stories in keeping with the theme of "Be Bold." I think what they were really getting at is, 'Be bold and take risks to help others, spread love and the love of Christ.' 

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The Wednesday before last weekend, Cyndi and I ate a lovely dinner at Johnny's Tavern in Amherst. 20% of the sales that night were given to the Senior Center.

After that I drove and we went to the West Whately Watermelon Wednesdays. (Try saying THAT fast!) Cyndi had copied the directions from their web site. We were on Route 91 north only for a few minutes and we drove and drove through the forest primevil, up a mountain, around curves, over bridges, on unpaved roads which ended up being paved ... and then, before we had run out of directions, poof! the little chapel with 50 wooden seats appeared and we were there. We said hello to the cows across the two lane road and went in to hear a masterful cellist.

During intermission, a long table with a watermelon cloth had been set outside on the grass. Running down the middle was a zillion wedges of juicy watermelon. There were pitchers with spigots for water. It was quite lovely. 

When the concert finally ended around 9:30 p.m. the stars were out, but the prettiest part of the evening was the plethora of lightning bugs. They were everywhere looking beautiful against the black night. (There were no artificial lights until the car headlights came on.)

It was a lovely evening and I'd go back in a minute. But I would definitely have to bring a pillow as those in the know did. Two hours on a wooden chair is very hard on the bones!