“If This Is Correct, Press 1”

June 2, 2015 / Ally Bean / 24 Comments

I’m in awe of this woman. I don’t know who she is, but I would not be so gracious under similar circumstances.

Because what happened must happen to her, and her family, almost daily. And only a bunch of saints could be this cheerful about the mistake I made.

An honest mistake, but a stupid one.

~ • ~

You see, on Sunday morning around 7:00 a.m. I decided to call the automated Kroger pharmacy line to refill my prescription. I was out of Restasis, my favorite eye drops ever.

Being half awake + a bit blurry-eyed [see previous sentence] I goofed while dialing the phone for the pharmacy. Instead of getting the “Hello. Thank you for calling your Kroger pharmacy.” message, I got a real person whose home I’d just called.

The woman who answered said your basic “Hello!” then heard me babble: “Oh no. I dialed wrong. Oh dear. Sorry to have bothered you this early. On Sunday. Oh my.”

And without missing a beat this polite woman said: “Trying to reach Kroger pharmacy?”

~ • ~

I answered, in a most pathetic voice: “Yes.”

All I heard on the other end of the line was her laugh and then she said: “Our phone number is close to theirs. You just misdialed. Try again. It happens here all the time.”

Grateful to be talking with someone who was not yelling at me for waking him or her up early on a weekend morning, I said: “Thank you. Sorry to have bothered you.”

Then with another laugh I heard her say: “No problem. Bye, bye!”

And so it came to be that on Sunday morning I spoke with a saint. I now have proof that they walk and talk among us.

Hallelujah & Amen.

Curly Hair, Haircut Appointments & The Games I Must Play

April 28, 2015 / Ally Bean / 27 Comments

I. I have naturally curly hair.

Only a few people know how to cut naturally curly hair so that it doesn’t turn into a frizzy, choppy mess. In fact, I recently got one of those lousy haircuts, but that’s not the story I’m going to tell you here.

No, this story is about how it came to be that I needed to go to a different hair stylist than my usual one. It is a story about how difficult it is to get an appointment with my usual hair stylist, who moved her business to Salon Lofts about two years ago.

II. Here’s why.

As a client I book my appointments with my hair stylist online using the Salon Lofts easy, intuitive scheduler. ‘Tis a breeze to use it. Love it.

At first this process was easy and wonderful. When I needed a haircut I’d go to my account online and look to see when my hair stylist had an opening. Then I’d pick my appointment.

However, other deceitful clients have begun to take all the appointments that they think they might want. For instance, if Little Miss Suzy Self-Absorbed likes to get her hair cut at a specific time on Wednesday afternoons, she’ll book all of those Wednesday afternoon appointments for months ahead.

Then, 24 hours before said appointment, our Little Miss Suzy Self-Absorbed will decide if this is the week she needs to get her hair cut, or not. If she no longer wants the appointment, she’ll cancel it without financial penalty.

III. This leaves me in a difficult situation.

Either I play this take-all-the-appointments-I-might-want-game, or I check online every morning to see if an appointment I can use has opened up for the next day. Then I re-arrange my schedule to take advantage of it.

I’ve talked with my hair stylist about this scheduling situation, but here’s the thing: from her point of view this is not a problem. After 30+ years of cutting hair she has an established clientele who will do anything to get an appointment, so she’s always booked with clients who show up.

Leaving me to play games to get an appointment. And when that fails, forcing me to go to some other available hair stylist who, as this last cut would prove, ain’t so good at what she does.

A Report From The Sidelines Re: Neighbor Vs. Birds

April 14, 2015November 19, 2015 / Ally Bean / 33 Comments

{ Image Source }

[Note to readers: we live in a neighborhood with homes built on wooded ravine lots. With many trees. In which birds build nests, as they are wont to do. These are facts.]

• • •

The neighbor woman who lives behind us has upped her anti-bird campaign. She’s still out to chase all the birds away from her property, but she has a new tactic.

Now, in addition to her shouting and noise-making, she has begun to place bright shiny silver & red metallic streamers in her trees.

• • •

She wanders around her backyard throwing these streamers up into the air near tree branches. Then when a streamer gets caught on a tree branch she loosely ties it to the branch, leaving yards of streamer fluttering in the wind.

This means that when the sun shines and hits the moving streamers, her backyard has bright lights randomly twinkling. It reminds me of an old-fashioned used car lot, which I guess she thinks is a turn-off for birds.

• • •

I find this new behavior alternately entertaining or annoying.

What entertains me is that her neighbors on the property immediately beside her have put a large bird feeder on a shepherd’s hook. They’ve positioned the shepherd’s hook in such a way that she’ll see the bird feeder ever time she steps outside onto her deck, but they cannot see it from their deck.

Don’t you just love passive-aggressive behavior?

• • •

However, what annoys me is that when the streamers are twinkling their brightest the light from them is strong enough to be noticed on our TV screen. Inside the house. Across the ravine.

Meaning that if we happen to be watching something on TV, our show has little sparkly red dots of color superimposed on it. It’s kind of like stroking out without going to the bother of having a stroke.

Now how strange is that?

A Conversation In Which I Learn Something About E-book Readers, I Guess

April 10, 2015January 9, 2017 / Ally Bean / 37 Comments

Make no assumptions…

IT’S BEEN STORMY here this week. Some days the sky has been as dark at 11:00 a.m. as it is at 11:00 p.m. This weather phenomenon has been the talk wherever I go.

As you would imagine.

ONE THING THAT I’ve learned during these exceptionally dark mid-days is that my Kindle Paperwhite does what it claims that it’ll do. That is, it automatically adjusts to the changing light conditions, making reading an easy pleasant experience.

I’m rather impressed by this.

SO I’M CHIT-CHATTING with two acquaintances, a man and a woman both in their early 50s. And I mention, in passing, as a way of having something topical to say, that I’ve enjoyed my Kindle during these dark days. And both of my acquaintances said: “what’s a Kindle?”

They did not know about e-book readers. Any of them.

I WAS STUNNED, and started trying to explain what a Kindle is– what e-book readers are– how you use them– the different brands of them. Et cetera, et cetera. But while I talked, hoping to inform, these two seemingly normal people just stared at me like I was talking Martian gibberish. Which to them, I was.

Can you even imagine?

# # #

[Hello FTC! Please note: I’m opining here about an object that I bought with my own monies and just happen to like. I received no compensation of any sort for this review, such as it is. I mean really, who would pay me to say this?]