Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #77: Foolish Furniture Store, Reading Labels, Mousy People, etc.

1. There is a furniture/home décor store that recently opened in my town. It took over the building from another furniture store. I’m guessing the new business wanted to make a big splash upon opening. Their solution to get eyes and ears on their store has been to blast music super loud from speakers in their parking lot. It is a little bit smart and a lot more ridiculous. I mean, let’s be real, you’re a furniture store. I’d expect that kind of obnoxious music blasting on loudspeakers outside from an amusement center, a restaurant, or, you know, a music store. It’s like the excitement of the loud music would be followed immediately by disappointment when you go inside and it’s desks and lamps, and tables. Wooo exciting.

2. This is the time of the year when I begin to plan my vacation. It occurs pretty much the same time every year, the last week of August. I have some good stuff planned already. It’s basically going to be a 3-4 day road trip through Northern New England. The irony is that even though a vacation is meant to be relaxing and a way to recharge I feel pressure. I feel pressure to pack my days with as much stuff to see to make it a trip worth remembering. I’m pretty sure I could go sit in a tent in Maine for 3 days and it would be awesome, but I’ll still be worrying for the next 6 weeks if I have enough to do on my itinerary.

Last time I was in Maine in 2019, those are my first 5 books.

3. It doesn’t take too long into summer for me to begin dreaming of my favorite season, that is fall. Warm weather and long days are all well and good, but with them comes loads of bugs and loads of low-intelligence people. I’m not sure which is worse. There are sprays to protect you from bugs. There are no sprays to protect you from idiots who drive while looking down at their phones repeatedly. It only gets worse when they begin swerving all over the road. Even after nearly hitting the sidewalk and a few oncoming vehicles, they went right back to checking their phone. I beeped to try to get them to smarten up and pay attention, but all they did was wave like a jackass. When I was finally able to pass them safely, I looked over and this guy looked like someone swept around a dumpster, poured it into a grungy tank top, and threw a few tattoos on it. Stay classy, white trashy.

4. In the building where I work, there are 3 other businesses besides my job. If a package is accidentally delivered next door, the people there will put a piece of paper in the window that says ‘UPS.’ Very nice of them. The only problem is when I go over there to get the package. I walk inside and down a short hallway, and I will knock politely on a door with a window. The woman who works at the front desk treats me like I am an ax murderer. She will crack the door open and speak with a trembling voice like she’s expecting me to whip out a machete and start carving her up. Maybe that’s just how she is. Maybe next time I should bang on the window and yell. She’d probably end up acting normally.

5. It might be time for me to get a new set of headphones. I have had a set of Mpow over-ear Bluetooth headphones that have lasted me close to 8 years. I had been used to having wired headphones last a few weeks or even less, so a pair that has made it years has been a privilege. That being said, I have noticed they are starting to wear out. The padding on the headband that connects the 2 ears has been gone for a few years. No big deal. But in the last several months I have noticed how difficult it is for me to get the headphones to charge. What I mean is that when I plug them into the charger, I have to wiggle and turn the USB in the headphones very specifically to get the charger light to turn on. It can be a 5-minute process to get the little red light to turn on, only for it to immediately turn back off. So yeah, maybe I have to get a new pair of headphones before I just take the old ones and bash them with a hammer.

6. There are days when I think I should buy a bucket, sponge, cloths, and soap, and do a full detailing of my car. Then I think about all of the time and effort it would take to make it look good. Plus there’s the fact that the trees and birds around my car like to use it as a toilet. Those are pretty strong deterrents. Why spend money and time to make my car look like new when it will likely be ruined by nature by the end of the same day? No thanks, I’ll just spray it with the hose each week, same thing.

I'd be better off washing my car with beer.

7. It will never not make me laugh and shake my head at the people who go to self-checkout in the grocery store and have no idea how to do it. There was a woman this week who was scanning items but decided to put her purse next to her shopping bag on the checkout counter. Naturally, the machine registered this and thought it was an unpaid item. The woman got mad at the machine because, of course, she can’t just admit she messed up. I felt bad for the employee who had to come reset the machine because they had to listen to this woman try to explain how it was the machine. I wanted to tell her next time, just go to a regular checkout line, but there’s no point in trying to help people like that.

8. I went to a baseball card shop for the first time in so many years. It was so that I could get a gift for my stepfather’s birthday. I forgot how much I loved looking at and collecting sports cards. The owners were great, and I intend on going back soon. They had a good mix of old packs of cards, new cards, and specialty stuff like autographed cards. I had a budget, and it was hard to keep to it. After seeing a Ken Griffey Jr. Donruss rookie card priced at $300, which I have, I am back to searching through my card collection to see if anything is valuable. Who knows, maybe this hobby will pay off. It has to be better than my Beanie Baby fail.

9. There is a great deal at a local dispensary called Haven in Brewster. You buy a 4-pack of THC seltzers and you get a 2nd 4-pack for $1. Awesome. This deal is on Saturdays during the summer for anyone who lives near Cape Cod. Anyway, I took advantage of it this week. For some reason, I figured that all of the seltzers had the same ingredients, even if the flavors were different. Boy, was I wrong. I thought Grape Soda flavor would be good, and it is. The problem is that it’s made like a regular soda. Don’t get me wrong, it was good, but it’s also 180 calories and loaded with sugar and carbs. My debate now is whether to drink all of them, or try to give the $1 4-pack away to others. Next time, I need to read labels.

Tastes great, loaded with sugar.

10. This summer has been a funny mix. So I always have some sort of work to do in writing, content, podcasting, etc. That’s in addition to my full-time day job. On my days off from the day job, I find myself spending 5-6 hours a day on content. I’ll get to a point where I need to pause my work and get outside and enjoy the summer weather. That is, until I actually get out on the road. Then I remember how incredibly overcrowded Cape Cod is in the summer. The roads are packed, beaches are packed, and stores are packed. After a few minutes I am ready to retreat back inside and wait until Labor Day. Sunny days are bad, rainy ones are worse. Then it’s like rushing outside to sit in traffic, even in my driveway.