Consumering

It's a good thing the grocery store is less than a mile from my house. I'm there too many times a week. Yesterday I $75 worth of grocery shopping in the early afternoon. Two hours later, Number One comes home and needs cotton balls for her science experiment. So out I go again. It's like that several times a week.

Remember last month, how I had to fight with AT&T Wireless because they held on to my account for an extra day so they could charge me for another month? Remember how I asked politely, then less so, then yelled at the rep, and he put me on hold for 15 minutes but gave in at the end (sullenly and reluctantly)?

I just got my first Credo Mobile bill, and I had slightly less than one month prorated, and they started the billing on 8/11. Well, that doesn't work. AT&T didn't relinquish my account until 8/14. The day I activated the phones was the day I added the text service, and that prorated fee started the right day. 8/14. Could be infuriating, right?

But I called Credo, got a rep right away, explained the situation, and was given an immediate $6 credit with no argument. It's nice not to have to fight.

(I know $6 isn't much, but when you have a nearly $200 phone bill, every little bit helps!)

So kudos to Credo, and I heartily recommend them as a long distance and mobile phone company. (Don't forget, they also donate 1% of your bill to charitable causes AND give you free Ben & Jerry's ice cream!)

One of my pet peeves is slowness. It's a flaw in me, of course. I should have more patience. But people who walk slow bug me (when I'm behind them). Ditto people who drive ten miles below the speed limit. Sometimes they seem slow when they're doing the speed limit, but then I can't be annoyed because they're being good. Slow talking, slow thinking, even slow pacing in a book, movie, or TV show drive me nuts.

I like to use the U-Scan checkout at the grocery store so I have control over my scanning and bagging (mostly the bagging). I don't care if someone has six items or sixty-five. I don't mind waiting when the stations are full. But last night there was a woman who moved slower than molasses. I couldn't stand watching her, even though it didn't directly affect me. She wasn't old, and didn't appear to have any kind of physical deficiency (though that's not always apparent). She'd finished checking out and started moving her bags from the scale to her cart. I think she had one bag left when I moved past her and started my scanning. Granted, I only had one item, but I was done and out of there before she was.

That grocery store has a clerk who's often there when I am. She's very sweet, always greets me and asks how I'm doing and stuff. But it's kind of disconcerting when she's walking along, sees me, and stops to say hi and beam at me as if I'm a close friend and it makes her day to see me. Like it violates the code of comfortable customer service.

I know. I'm weird.

Hey, look at that! My post had a cohesive theme today!

Don't get used to it.