The Magic of Macys

Dear Macy's Management,

We need to talk. Customer Service means giving service to customers. It does not mean sending them down a forest path; a path so circuitous, so frustrating, that you hope they will just give up and go home.

Here is what happens if you call Macy's Customer Service number. You make three or four layers of choices, you key in your account number (because when you choose the option to speak the number, they can't understand you), you key in a portion of your social security number, you get put on hold for a very long time, and then you get a human being... in India. Who can't hear you. You try the whole process again, thinking there must be something wrong with your phone. And they still can't hear you. Even if you yell, which, by now, you are most certainly doing.

So you decide to get in your car and go to Macy's where, it turns out, there is NO customer service department. Instead, there are two beige telephones that, when you lift the receiver, connect you to the Customer Service line where you make three or four layers of choices, you key in your account number, you key in a portion of your social security number, you get put on hold for a long time, and then you get a human being... in India. Who can't hear you. Even if you shout.

The best thing to do, at least in Vancouver, Washington, is to go directly to the Wedding Department and speak to a lovely woman named Heidi. Heidi also has a beige telephone at her large, quiet Wedding Department desk with which she can call the people in India. Oddly enough, when Heidi identifies herself as a Macy's employee, the people in India can hear her.

That must be the Magic of Macy's.

It's May, It's May, the Lusty Month of May

Until a year ago I was under the impression that the lifespan of the average household goldfish went something like this:

Day 1 - purchase 49 cent goldfish (or, alternately, lob a ping pong ball into a jar and bring one home from the fair in a cruelly small baggie)

Day 2 - admire goldfish swimming enthusiastically around the bowl

Day 3 - note that goldfish has developed a serious list

Day 4 - flush goldfish down the toilet

But that was before I had outdoor goldfish. They still started out as 49 centers. But, now, after two years and two seasons under several inches of ice they are hale and hearty and lookin' for love. According to ehow.com, it isn't easy to determine the gender of the average goldfish. However, I'm pretty sure I have 3 males and one female since Goldie was being hotly pursued by Larry, Moe, and Curly last weekend. Larry (or maybe it was Moe or Curly) sidled up to her and shimmied most alluringly. I'm counting on being a Grandma again, soon.

Dance Like No One is Watching

The capacity for having a good time is all about attitude. The notion we all hold as gospel, that the homecoming queens and football captains of the world are having a better time than the rest of us by virtue of their dazzling looks, just doesn't seem to hold water.

Last night the dance hall was awash in celebrity sightings. We had Hoss Cartwright, Larry the Cable Guy, Grandma from the Golden Girls (who, I declare, could shake her thang), Riff Raff from The Rocky Horror Picture Show, several incarnations of Roseanne Barr, circa 1990, Festus, a high kicking Gandhi in a disco shirt, Ozzie, Harriet, and a tall, white Steve Urkel. Did I notice these people because of their famous faces (and hats)? Well... yes. But I also noticed them because they were out on the dance floor for every single song.

The table that surely won the Lousiest Time Award was occupied by four unsmiling women who watched, malevolently, through narrowed eyes as we danced by.

Incidental to this post, but remarkable in so many ways, was the woman doing a vigorous east coast swing in red 4 inch spike heeled pumps. How did she keep them on? How did she not break an ankle? To Red High Heels Woman goes the Evil Knievel award.

Crazy Neighbor

Crazy neighbors are fun. My all time favorite? The irascible elderly couple next door that came out on the porch and shook their fists and shouted invective at the turkey vultures circling over their house. Second favorite? The lady who peered over the fence the first day my (now ex) husband and I moved into our house and asked if he would mow her lawn.

No one aspires to Crazy Neighbor status, but I'm heading that way all because of one long night of poo.

I like cats. They're pretty and soft and make nice house pets. But I don't own one, so why do I have cat feces in my securely fenced yard and, more significantly, in (and out) of my dog? Night before last I was awakened at approximately 2 hour intervals by my dog vomiting and/or passing the most foul brew imaginable. It invaded my dreams, trashed my quilt, and despoiled my carpet. Delicious, nutritious, but apparently indigestible cat poo.

Every day I see them scale my fence. Why do they care about my yard? Why aren't they home using a nice litter box? My dog doesn't defecate in their yard. Why should they be using mine?

On today's shopping list: mousetraps. Baited with cat food.

Good Advice

Last weekend I went to a dance where out on the floor was a woman whose skirt was tucked into the back of her waistband. A woman sitting at my table said she had tried to tell her about it, but the skirt woman said, no, that was how it was supposed to be (it was a wrap-around model). A goodly time passed in which she danced many dances until, presumably, she journeyed into the restroom and got a good look at what the rest of us had been trying not to look at for about an hour.

The moral of the story: Do not dismiss the advice of well meaning people without full consideration. They may, after all, be trying to cover your ass.

Save a Dollar, Kill a Tree

Amazon.com isn't just a great place to shop because of their vast product selection, great prices, and speedy service. No! They also have entertaining packaging, providing you're not a tree.

I ordered two Almay eyeliner pencils (because it was cheaper than buying them one at a time in the store and I'll use them eventually). (See previous post.) My pencils, two, arrived today in a box 19" x 13" x 5.75". But wait, there's more! Inside that box, surrounded by bubble wrap, was a second box 12" x 9" x 4". And inside that box was a third box 6" x 2" x 1.25". And inside that, my two little pencils - in blister packs. It was the Russian Doll of packaging.

Grow Your Own

Lately the news is full of heartrending stories of people fallen on hard times as well as inspiring tales of resourcefulness that would do veterans of 1930 proud.  There are articles telling us 10 Ways to Trim Your Budget! and How to Grow Your Own Vegetables!

I grew up in a thrifty family and am pleased to have produced two exceptionally thrifty children. We were cheap, and proud of it, before the current economy forced everyone to be cheap(er). This was brought home to me today as I wandered through Macy's with a $20 gift certificate in hand. First, I was in the Oregon Macy's to save sales tax. Second, I decided to spend my certificate after I saw the huge ad in the paper - 50% Off Already Reduced Prices! Third, I have three birthdays coming up in the next month and thought, "Whoa! I can buy someone a present without spending very much money." Alas, not even free money is easy for a truly cheap person to spend. I made my way from Jewelry, through Men's, Juniors, Shoes, Handbags and Kitchenware, and didn't find a single thing I thought was worth what Macy's thought it was worth.

So, still burdened with my dog eared $20 certificate, I went home and turned over my compost heaps. And in a couple of months I will Grow My Own Vegetables! like I always do.

Would you like some rubber bands with that?

Every so often I toy briefly with vegetarianism, such as when I hear the chef on the cable tv cooking show describing the short, tragic life of the veal calf or when undercooked burgers kill a few people with e coli. Laziness always wins and I keep on eating whatever is easiest.

However, if you have the intestinal fortitude to be a vegetarian, I say embrace it whole hog. Tofurkey, Chik'n®, Gardenburgers®, and smoked-flavored textured vegetable protein corned beef are just sops to those who can't entirely divorce themselves from their carnivorous pasts, and I'm here to tell you at least one of those tastes really really really bad. That would be, sorry, Grandma Rose, the corned beef.

Portland Adventist Hospital, where I recently took my friend for knee surgery, is, as the name implies, run by vegetarians. You can't get a tuna sandwich in the cafeteria, yet they do have a "grill". It's the first thing you come to inside the cafeteria door, and if there is any pattern to my eating, it usually fits the first-thing-you-see method of menu choice. They were out of Chik'n® so I opted for a Reuben sandwich, not giving any real thought to what might constitute corned beef in a vegetarian restaurant. Now I know what happens to old surgical gloves. They steep them for three weeks in smoke flavoring and make sandwiches out of them.

Which brings me to my second, obliquely hospital-related, subject: Cable rates are going up! Six percent! Bring on the television interviews, the opinion polls, stories of hardship and woe. Now pan over to my health insurance bill, the one from Regence Blue Cross that raised the premium on my individual health plan with the gargantuan deductible by over 33% in a single jump (and, no, I didn't change age groups). Now pan over to the masses of people with no bill to complain about because they don't have any insurance. Cable rates. Pffft. Big deal.

Making the World a Better Place. In One Act.

Some things are particularly wonderful because they're rare - things like enormous diamonds and four leaf clovers. Some things are rare, yet not wonderful, like two-headed calves and tsunamis. And then there are the rare things that are wonderful, but would be even more wonderful even if they were commonplace. And those things, if they were commonplace, would have a hand in ending war, bigotry, and hip fractures, not necessarily in that order.

Yesterday I was eating lunch with a kind man when I noticed that his focus had moved from our conversation to the sidewalk outside the restaurant where an exceptionally frail and ancient woman was inching her way into a huge SUV, having been relieved of her walker by her briskly efficient middle-aged (grand?)daughter. With the walker folded and stowed, said daughter skipped into the driver's seat leaving grandma, barely perched in the passenger seat, waving ineffectually at the car door in a vain attempt to close it behind her. The next thing I knew, my lunch companion had beamed himself up, reappeared on the sidewalk, and was unfurling the seatbelt for said old lady and closing her door. Everyone else, myself included, just sat and watched because, after all, she wasn't OUR old lady. Right? And that's too bad.

What ever happened to those "Practice Random Kindness" bumper stickers? (My theory is, because they actually read, "Practice Random Kindness and Senseless Acts of Beauty", they were just too saccharin to survive.) Nonetheless people, get out there and Practice some gol dern Random Kindness. Your waitress will say nice things about you. Ours did. And so will I.

Family Ties

My town is a friendly place. Unpretentious, a little short on urban planning, replete with strip malls, but also populated with nice parks, a cute downtown, and a bike path along a pretty riverfront. All in all a good place to raise a family. That's why my heart was warmed a few nights ago when I overheard a young woman, enjoying an evening out with her middle-aged mother, "Are you hammered, Mom?"