It's time for one of Merle Wayne Sneed's sweeping, uninformed generalizations. Who needs information when he is gifted with great intuition? Some people (but maybe not all), who claim to suffer from Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) are coo-coo for Coco Puffs and not sensitive at all. There I said it. We have a customer at the store who claims to suffer from MCS. I think she suffers from Obnoxious Personality Disorder (OPD). In her case the MCS is kind of selective. Sometimes she will call the store from her car in the parking lot and ask that a list of items be brought out to her. We take her credit card in and bring her purchases out. Other times she comes to the door and we conduct business at the threshold. She claims that the vast array of chemicals in the store will do her in. One can only hope. Yesterday to my surprise, she barged right into the store and demanded that I get her a light bulb, asap. The problem was that she didn't really know what she wanted. She asked for a specific bulb, but it was not suitable for the lamp she was trying to get it for. I was having a hard time explaining this to her and she finally snapped and yelled at me. Her words were more or less, "I can't be in here because of all the chemicals. Do you have what I need or not?" I was pleased to tell her that we didn't have anything she needed. So, she left. I asked the boss if we can ban her from the store, but the almighty dollar trumps civility again. What do you suppose is up with the nutjob in California who had the eight babies? She has 14 kids and no job, lives with parents and is unmarried. Single mother of 14. Has a nice ring to it, doesn't it? Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

Governor Rod Blagojevich, D-Il was removed from office this afternoon by a 59-0 vote in the state senate. The senators also barred Blagojevich from ever again holding public office in Illinois. "That seems harsh to me," said the ex-governor. A prominent state senator, speaking off the record, said that the unanimous vote reflects the disgust that senators from both sides of the aisle have for the former governor. "This is Illinois for Christ's sake. Illinois school kids know how to beat a wire tap and this meathead gets caught. We simply can't have this level of incompetence on the part of our governor. This will embolden the FBI and we simply can't allow that." A late-day crisis briefly threatened to derail the gubernatorial transition when it was discovered that the ex-governor had changed the locks in the Governor's offices and was locked inside, refusing to come out. The situation was defused when a custodian, Maria Sanchez, walked in on the sleeping ex-governor. "He just forgot to lock the outside exit door to the governor's bathroom", said Sanchez. She also shrugged off suggestions that she was a hero saying, "I clean the bathroom everyday at five. It's no big deal." Police spokesman, Captain Otto Pulaski confirmed that the ex-governor had been planning this lock changing strategy for some time. "We found some DVDs and manuals about locksmithing in his private office," remarked Pulaski. "It looks like he was taking some kind of online deal." Also early this evening the pilot of the Governor's plane suddenly remembered that the ex-governor had borrowed the keys to the executive plane to "get some sh*t out of the back." Police found the keys in the sofa where the former chief executive was found sleeping. "The public was never in any danger, but having the keys to the plane in the hands of a guy like this is something we never want to see. But, this is what we train for," said Pulaski. Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

The Postmaster General of the United States has warned Congress that mail service may have to cut to five days per week because of a looming $6B loss this year. USPS studies have shown that only 19% of Americans check their mailboxes daily, so they contend, "Why bother delivering the crap every day?" An AP/IPS/CNN/MSNBC/NFL/EIEIO poll taken Jan 4-7 asked 1505 Americans for their feelings on cutting mail delivery to five days, from the current six. An overwhelming 86% said that they didn't care, 10% cared deeply and 3% had no preference. The remaining one percent don't own mailboxes and don't think that they get mail anyway. The Postmaster also asked for a program tied to the proposed stimulus package that would provide a tax credit of $100 for anyone agreeing to send letters to ten friends, asking them to send one to ten of their friends and so on. "This could be big, really big", said the Postal Service chief. "Sounds like a damn chain letter to me", offered Representative Ogden Smith R-OH. The committee agreed to refer this proposal to staff for further study. Among other proposals was one to outlaw "the email", which postal officials have identified as the root of the problem. In the absence of a total ban, postal authorities have asked that emailers be required to buy e-stamps. Details on how that would work are sketchy, although strong opposition is expected from the "penis enhancement" lobby. Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

Someone in the decision making end of the hardware store has decided that a sure-fire road to success is to have more of what we sell on the shelves, and have less of what we don't sell. Pretty savvy thinking. How this affects me, and that is really the important question, is that I arrived at work this morning to find three times the normal amount of merchandise to be stocked. So, all day today and likely all day tomorrow, I will be stocking my old heart out. I actually perfer stocking to waiting on people, but it isn't one or the other. Our store has adopted a cat. We've had an obviously abandoned, white female cat hanging around the back of the store for awhile. Some of the employees decided to feed and water her and voilà, we have a store cat. The boss says that we must find her a home, but no one is looking too hard. The cat lives under a metal storage rack in the back outside storage area. She cannot come into the store because we have motion sensors and she would set them off. No one thought to provide a litter box for Miss Cat because she lives outside. Unfortunately, the cat sees the whole back storage yard of the store as her litter box. One of the dopey high school kids had to spend Saturday morning washing down the back area to try and rid it of the smell of cat pee. No good deed goes unpunished. Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

Tucked completely within the City of Hooterville, lies the one square-mile City of South Hooterville. It bills itself as the Pueblo within a City. South Hooterville has a population that is just under 6000, overwhelmingly Hispanic. According to the 2000 census, 80% of South Hootervillians speak Spanish at home. It is a very traditional Southwestern city. The government of South Hooterville operates pretty much on the same system as Chicago, with its office of Mayor being handed down from generation to generation. The current Mayor is the daughter of the former mayor. The usual suspects occupy the various City posts, periodically switching from one to another. South Hooterville is where you want to go if you want good, authentic Mexican food in the Sonoran style. South 4th Avenue, the culinary capital of South Hooterville, boasts a mile of Mexican restaurants, one next to the other. Beside Mexican food there isn't much going on in South Hooterville in the way of commerce. South Hooterville is in the news today for the case of one of their high police commanders, who has admitted stealing almost $600,000 from the city coffers. That is shameful in several ways. Not only did this skunk violate the public trust, he stole money that South Hooterville desperately needed. South Hootervillians tend to be poorer and need more public help than average. It is a testament to the small town nature of South Hooterville that it took four years for someone to wise up to his shenanigans. It seems to me that these days embezzlers are invariably gambling addicts and this fellow was no exception. Hooterville is home to four Indian Casinos. Additionally, the State of Arizona runs a lottery. News reports of compulsive gamblers stealing to feed their habit are regular. Government-sanctioned gambling is nothing more than a way to tax the poor, even when the poor never set foot in a casino. Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

I was supposed to spend the morning at work today making screens. One of the services that we offer is rescreening window screens and making new screens. The emphasis is on supposed to, because I only got two done, rather than the five or so the boss had in mind. A woman came in at a bit after seven with a broken window and two mangled window screens in hand. She had been the victim of a burglary. The thieves pried one screen off and then couldn't get the window to open, so they moved on to another This time, after prying off the screen and ruining it, they just mashed the window and reached in to unlock the window. No sooner than I had her window fixed, two gentlemen came in with two broken windows, also from a break in. I checked the Hooterville Police Website and found that in 2008 in the two square mile police beat that includes our store, there were 129 burglaries where the cretins forced their way in. That's a lot of break ins. Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

For Megan and Annie, a shot of my new toaster. She's a beauty. The older I get the more I seem to slip toward anarchy. I've become reflexively suspicious of the motives of everyone in authority. I expect the worst and I am rarely surprised these days. While the echos of, ...ding dong, the Bush is gone.. still hang in the air, I find that a major consulting firm, tied to prominent Democrats, has been identified as having given counsel to Gov. Blago about how to best sell the President's former Senate seat. Democrat or Republican, it matters little. The skunk smells the same. The past eight years have clouded that reality, but the next eight should clarify things. I do not doubt the President's resolve to bring about change, but I do not underestimate the will of the powerful to resist him. Open a dusty closet in any hall of government, local, state or federal and there will be a bipartisan stampede of rats out of the light and back into the shadows. But back to the subject of anarchy. A debate is raging all across Arizona, including Hooterville, over the spread of traffic cameras. This is an old argument in many places, but in the desert it is the latest. By way of disclaimer, I will disclose that I don't speed as a rule, except when I am moving at the pace of traffic. The last speeding ticket I received was in 1969 and that was for going 45 mph in a 35 zone. In Arizona, because of a quirk in the law, you must be going faster than 11 mph over the posted limit in order for a camera to snap your picture. Then, they send you a ticket and you are supposed to pay up. Most people don't, until they are tracked down. Merle Wayne Sneed has no argument with enforcing the speed limits, but I do have have a big issue with cameras. I really have issues with hiring private companies to run them. Particularly when many speed limits are set by the politicians, rather than the traffic engineers. We have a four-lane thoroughfare here in Hooterville, stretching from the University to the East side, where the speed limit is set at 30 mph. Traffic flows faster, making it easy pickings for the radar camera guys. The speed limit is set at 30, not for traffic safety reasons, but because the University-area crowd has their hand in the pocket of their friends in City government. Cars whizzing by at 40 are a menace in the eyes of the pretentious. The first rule of economics is, production increases when the price is high enough. Pay these companies enough and they will produce plenty of pictures. But, the bigger issue is the idea that I'm under surveillance when I am just going about my business. It turns out that our authorities are not only taking pictures of speeders, they are taking streaming video on a 24/7 basis. They are keeping this video for months, "just in case they need it", according to a spokesman. The authorities are quick to point out that these cameras are for "public safety" reasons and not revenue generation, which is just a happy byproduct. A camera can catch speeders at a rate a 1000-fold times that of an patrol officer. If public safety is our goal, we can carry things to a lot of undesirable, yet logical ends. If a camera on the roadway is good, isn't one on every corner better? Wouldn't we be safer if we were monitored more closely. Perhaps a camera trained on every house, or a GPS in every car. After all, if you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about. Do you? Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

I'm beginning to feel like my health insurance company is trying to wean me off my policy, without telling me and without cutting my premiums. My premiums went up at the first of the year, accompanied by higher co-pays and a reduction in coverage. Other than that, it is a swell arrangement. I hope someone figures out how to fix this mess. I'm slowing trading my meager pension for health care. I was out this morning, in the rain I might add, with my knuckle-headed pals, the Seafood King and Some Guy Named Bob. We played golf and due to the inclement weather, had the course to ourselves. Poor Some Guy Named Bob is in a world of his own on the golf course. He doesn't keep score and if he hits a bad shot, he just reaches into his pocket for another ball and hits again. It can be unnerving because one must always be on his guard when playing with Some Guy Named Bob. Just when you least expect it, he will hit a shot without regard to where the other players are located. It isn't an official round of golf unless Some Guy Named Bob has winged someone. Then there is the matter of his eyesight, which isn't good. The Seafood King observed that Some Guy Named Bob, is the inspiration for Mr. Magoo. Brilliant. Some Guy Named Bob hits the ball and generally has no idea where it has gone. On every shot the dilemma is to help him find his ball or simply leave him to fend for himself. Mostly it is the former, but sometimes you have to ignore him or the round would take six hours. One problem with leaving him on his own is that he becomes preoccupied with trying to find lost golf balls in the bushes. Some Guy Named Bob has about a thousand old golf balls, but he thinks a few more would be great. He's a lunatic, but he's our lunatic. Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

The local crime wave continued today. I went into work and noticed that the front window of the St. Vincent de Paul thrift shop, next door to our store and been totally smashed out. The lady who was surveying the damage said that they hadn't had time yet to see what was gone. Hooterville has crime problems, that's for sure. Citizens of Hooterville are about 20% more likely to be the victims of murder than the national average. Fortunately, most of the murders are gangsters and dopers killing one another. Regretfully, domestic violence is probably the second highest category. Random killings are exceedingly rare. In the matter of property crimes things are even worse. We rank high in car thefts, courtesy of our proximity to the Mexican border. Businesses along the I-19 freeway that leads to the border are especially prone to be car theft hot spots. Mexican police officials have been found to be driving cars stolen from the United States. There seems to be little disincentive for thieves to steal cars and hot foot it to the border. We have much higher than average burglaries and other thefts of property, largely due to the high concentration of drug addicts who plague us. Other than that, it is a pretty good place to live. On to the inauguration. I wasn't there, nor would I have attended given the chance. I admire those who cared enough to brave the crowds to be a part of history, but I'm not constituted that way. I TIVO'd the whole deal and pretended that I had a private reserved, heated box. President Obama positively exudes a contagious confidence and a determination to fix what ails us. Let us hope that the insufferable Reid and Pelosi, the twin masters of politics as usual, catch his enthusiasm for doing what is right, rather than what is expedient. Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

Some of the more picky readers of yesterday's post have pointed out to me that a father doesn't "babysit" his own kids. Well, excuuuuuse me! The year was 1973 and Merle Wayne Sneed was a young guy. In the olden days men went to work and moms took care of the kids. If a mom went out and left the dad with the kids, we called it babysitting. Don't blame me, I was just following protocol. The inauguration didn't seem to slow down the criminal element today. One of my coworkers saw a ne'er-do-well put something into his pants today and shouted at him to remove it and get out of the store. There was a lot of shouting and commotion. I steered clear of the entire affair. The crook eventually took out the can of WD-40 he was trying to steal and left the store. We came home this evening to find that our neighbor Tim's house had been burglarized. Apparently, the crooks kicked in the dog door to gain entrance. Tim called me over as Mrs. Sneed and I got out of the car. He had been waiting four hours for Hooterville's finest to show up. I'm not that impressed with the Hooterville cops. The list of things that don't take priority on their busy schedule is long. Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

At Least They Took the Kid

We went to the mall this afternoon and noticed this as we returned to the car. Apparently, someone drove off and left their stroller. I checked, there was no kid in it. I've never driven off and left a stroller in the parking lot. That takes a real dope. I did once forget I was babysitting our two older children and went to the store while the kids were napping, but that was an honest mistake. Anyone could have made it. I have to say that the trip to the mall was pretty much a bust all around. I went to get my eyes examined, but in Sneed fashion, I made an appointment at the wrong place and ended up in a joint I vowed never to go back to. Why you ask? Many years ago, I got my eyes examined by this criminal optometrist. Okay, technically he wasn't a criminal, but when I asked him for a copy of my prescription, he refused to give it to me. He said it was because, I didn't go back for a two-week follow up after I got my contacts. That is optometrist speak for, "You aren't ordering contacts by mail if I can stop you." In Arizona they have to give you the prescription for glasses immediately, but they can make you come back for a follow up before you get a copy of a contact lens prescription. I guess if they can't stick you for over-priced contacts, they will stick you for an additional visit. Today, it was an exam for glasses, so when they tried to hustle their overpriced merchandise on me, I just asked for the prescription and left. I'll go to Costco and pay half the price, for a better product. And, yes I did vow to not wear my glasses anymore, but that didn't work out as well as I had hoped. Did you know that eye wear has the highest markup of any retail product? I read that, so it must be true. Second on the agenda was switching our cellphones over to a new company. Our current company, Qwest Wireless, sold its soul to Verizon and is making us switch over to them. The way it works is that current Qwest customers who are under contract, can either switch to Verizon or pay Qwest $250 for 'early termination'. If you wait until the end of February, Qwest will cease to exist and your phone will just be disconnected and they will free you from your contract. But your phone number will be lost and gone forever. We had to pick out new phones, because our perfectly fine Qwest phones don't work on the Verizon system. Verizon was offering basic phones for free, which works just fine for me, but Mrs. Sneed wanted something a step up from the bottom of the barrel. Her first and second choices were unavailable, but in the end she got something that was satisfactory. Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

What does it say about us as society when the biggest movie of the weekend was Mall Cop? Hollywood is replete with actors who can only play themselves and Kevin James is not the exception. I watched the Obama celebration on HBO tonight and I have to admit that it was hard not to get caught up in the excitement. When did little Stevie Wonder become large and old Stevie Wonder? Oh yeah, the same time it happened to Merle Wayne Sneed. Of course Stevie still has that talent thing going on and Merle Wayne is still a hardware guy. I wonder how the President-elect feeling with the pressure of saving our country on hs shoulders? People are expecting so much, that disappointments are inevitable. But optimism ran high. Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

Today was rude and angry customer day at the hardware store. Luckily I was my usual charming and "let it roll off me" self. Otherwise I might have told some people some things. In the hardware business you are a hero about 95% of the time. People have broken stuff and we have replacement parts and fixit advice, to boot. There is little that can go wrong. Except, of course, that 5% of the population are insufferable assholes and they show up from time to time. I had to unexpectedly go in to work 2 and a half hours early today, so I was in no mood for a-holes. A guy came in and asked if we had a particular brand of plumbing fixture. We didn't. He asked if I knew what they are. I don't. He wanted me to ask someone else. I did, Bill didn't. The guy shouted at me that a normal hardware store would carry the product he needs. Then he huffed out. I also had a miserable old bastard, accompanied by his nurse (I'm not kidding) give me crap because we are out of the size of heater filter he needs. His exact words, "Do you think you are ever going to reorder filters?" My response, "We're considering it." I told him to come back on Tuesday and I would guarantee him that we will have some. He's coming back. I've been warned. My favorite was a guy who called me to ask how much we charge to rekey a lock. I told him eight bucks. He shows up with a double cylinder deadbolt, the kind that takes a key to open even from the inside. That is not one lock, it's two locks in a single case. Each side has to be rekeyed. They person who did the rekey told him it would be eight bucks per side, but he either didn't understand or pretended not to. When he got to the checkout and was charged 16 dollars, he went apesh*t, screaming at the top of his lungs. The boss tried to calm him down, to no avail. He accosted me, insisting that I should have told him it was considered two locks. My x-ray vision has gone with my ESP, it seems. In the end the boss gave him back eight bucks as a goodwill gesture. I would have given him back the money and told him not to ever come in the store again, but that's just me. Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

Maybe it's just me, but I draw the line at buying meat from a door-to-door salesperson. I was moving our doorbell this afternoon. Several years ago we enclosed the entry way to the house with a large wrought iron door. That had the unintended good consequence of making our doorbell inaccessible to the pestering public, but also made it difficult for invited guests and delivery people to alert us to their presence at the door. Mrs. Sneed has asked me about a thousand times why we (I) can't move it outside the new door. It is a technical issue. Technically, it is a lot of work. I bought one of those wireless doorbells, but it proved unreliable. I recently bought another, with the same result. When Larry the Bug Man came yesterday, he couldn't get the bell to work and called he me on his cell phone to say he was here. He also pointed out that the bell was not working. That was the last straw, because Larry is a whiner and he must have said , "Thank God for cellphones, huh?", about ten times. Anyway, I finally decided on a method to move the damn thing and was deep into it when a red pickup, with a big chest freezer in the back, pulled up in front of the house. I recognize a pain in the ass unfolding when I see it. A young woman jumped out and ran up to the door where I was working. And working on my hands and kness, I hasten to add. This is what she said as nearly as I can recall. "Blah, blah, waaa...blah, selling meat, blah, blah, getting started in the business, blah, blah, my boss is in the truck, can I show you some of our meat?" I told her I don't eat meat (mostly true). "We have chicken and seafood, too, I'll go get some to show you." Me speaking, "Uh, I'm kind of in the middle of something here." She stood there for a minute, hoping I would relent, I suppose. She finally turned and left. I half expected the guy in the truck to come to the door, but he just peeled out. I wonder where a person gets the idea that independent door-to-door meat sales is a money-maker? . Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

This is a mesquite thicket, called a bosque. It is at a local enclave where the affluent can live behind their gates, safe from the rest of us. Daughter Sneed calls my weekly lunch with my friends, the Geezer Banquet. Nice. Yesterday at the Geezer Banquet, our waitress told us that she is from Chicago. This got us on a tangent about ethnic neighborhoods, of which Chicago has plenty. And on the general topic of people clustering in neighborhoods with people like themselves. My mother was born in Chicago Heights, Illinois, a town on the South side of Chicago. The last of my mother's family left Chicago Heights in the early 1960s. Her sisters, Geraldine and Norma, along with their assorted relatives moved to Berwyn, Illinois, about 30 miles north of Chicago Heights and just west of downtown Chicago. According to my mother, Chicago Heights got "too black" for them. At that time, Berwyn had a large Czech population, or has my Aunt Geraldine called them, "Bohunks". But they were white and apparently that was the important part. Hooterville, like most places has distinct parts of the metro area. Our Eastern, Northern and Western communities are enclaves of middle, upper-middle class or and rich, mostly white folks. The South side is predominantly Hispanic, mostly Mexican and Mexican-American, with pockets of Tohono O'Odham and Pascua Yaqui native peoples. Being so close to the Mexican border lots of people fret these days about the growing influence of the Hispanic population and culture. Believe it or not, our public schools were segregated for African-American children until Brown v. Board of Education, stuck down the concept of separate but equal. Our schools have been under a desegregation order for years. Back in the 1970's, Hispanic and African-American parents sued to force the schools to really integrate. By that time our schools had long been technically integrated, but because of housing patterns, the schools were segregated for practical purposes. In my high school of nearly 5000 students, we had about 10 black kids. After three decades under a desegregation order the judge has lifted the order. Not so much because the goals of the order have been met, but because our largest district has gone from 75% Anglo students to 70% Hispanic students. Growth of the city, as well as expanding school choice have made it easy for white families to move their kids out of the Hooterville School District. Racism, or at least the fear of people different than oneself, never seems to go away, it just become more subtle. If there is a lighter side to segregation, this story is it. We were on a family vacation in the early 1990's and were visiting Mrs. Sneed's aunt and uncle in Providence, Rhode Island. Mrs. Sneed was born and spent the early years of her life in Pawtucket, R.I, adjacent to Providence. She had memories of the Sunday trips to the cemetery to 'visit' loved ones, and she wanted to make a trip out to the cemetery. But, she didn't remember exactly it was. So I stopped at the municipal offices of a town near where we thought it might be and I went in to ask directions. A woman at the reception desk asked if she could help me and I explained our situation. "Well", she said, we have three cemeteries, what were they?" I didn't understand the question. "Dead?", I offered. When in doubt, make a bad joke. "No, were they French, English...that sort of thing?" I told her I thought they were Polish, forgetting that Mrs. Sneed's aunt was married to a man of Polish decent, but her family was not of Polish origin. After she caught her breath, she pulled herself up to her full height and told me in no uncertain terms that, "If they're Polish, they're not in our cemeteries." I was dumbfounded. I recall hustling down the stairs and reporting things to Mrs. Sneed who straightened me out on the background of her family. Back up the stairs I went, where I blurted out, "English, they were English!" "Go down to the stop sign, make a left and it's a couple of miles down the road on the left." And it was. The ultimate in segregation. Being among your own as you turn to dust. Ridiculous. Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

Evening Update

I'm happy to report that at long last me and my $423.80 have been reunited. The bank bureaucrats fought to the end, but I out 'subborned' them. Before traipsing over to the credit union this morning I attempted to contact Andrea, the writer of the letter I received Saturday, which informed me that I was screwed. No dice on that, Andrea was unavailable all day. I did speak to someone else but she didn't seem to know anything about my problem. She promised to check it out and call me back when she knew more. That would likely be a week from never. After a while, I decided to go over to my branch and get a little huffy with them. I spent about fifteen minutes trying to explain the problem to a woman at the front desk. She in turn made about a half dozen phone calls trying to sort things out for me. As it turns out somewhere between the branch office and headquarters, they lost my paperwork, hence the letter from Andrea. They were able to verify that I had met their requirements from notes in my file, but the actual papers are misfiled or lost somewhere. Their solution was to make out a new set. This time I got to meet with the branch manager. She grilled me on the details, just in case I was going to crack and admit that I am a crook living in Maryland. Then, she had me sign the paperwork again. So far so good, but things took a turn for the worse. Me: So when do I get my money back? Her: After you wife comes in and signs too. For a moment I couldn't see because all the blood in my body raced to my eyeballs. Me: Why's that now? Her: They said so. Me: Who exactly are they? Her: Corporate. Me: Call them and tell them I said no. My wife didn't sign last time and she's not coming in to sign this time. Her: I can't help it, that's what they said. Me: Perhaps I should just drive over to Corporate and see them in person. Her: They are not a public office. At this point I dumped every gory detail of this debacle on her, including every time they could have prevented this mess and didn't. I don't remember it all, but I think global warming came in at the end. She left the room to 'talk to someone else'. She was back in a minute. Her: Okay, your wife doesn't have to come in, you can have her sign it and bring it back. Me: Nope. Besides, how will you know she actually signed it? Her: We will check her signature card. Me: You've had my money for almost three week and the last thing I going to do is jump through more hoops. I have other things to do. I'm not doing it. She left the room again. Her: Does your wife have a debit card for this account? (you think they would know this). Me: Nope. Her: Okay, she doesn't have to sign. Me: When do I get my money back? Her: Uh, by the end of business today? Me: Swell. And it is back, safe and sound. Yipee. In honor of the safe return of my cash, I offer you Peaches and Herb. Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

Maybe you've wondered why retailers offer rebates on products rather than simply discounting the price at the point of sale? The always cynical Merle Wayne Sneed has long suspected that it is because sellers know that most people are attracted by the possibility of a rebate and most people won't file for them, leaving a lot of free money for the sellers and manufacturers. There was a story about rebates in yesterday's Hooterville Daily Dish. The article said that about 60% of people who are entitled to a rebate, never claim it. That's a lot of lost opportunity. Manufacturers use what are called rebate-fulfillment houses to process their rebates for them. These fulfillers are simply middlemen who collect the rebate information from the consumer and collect the money from the manufacturer. They validate the rebates and send out the checks. All for a fee. Yesterday's article intimated that manufacturers instruct their middlemen to automatically deny a certain number of rebates, in the hope that the consumer will simply give up. Apparently as many as half do. That prelude brings me to my story of the day, involving a rebate submission I made on the Ace Hardware website. Ace is more progressive than most retailers when it comes to rebate submissions. If you have an Ace Rewards Card, their loyalty program, you can submit a rebate on line, without having to fill out any forms or mail any proof of purchase. You simply pick the product you bought from a list of rebate-eligible purchases and the system verifies that you purchased it, using your card records. I bought a portable DVD player at Thanksgiving, which had a $30 rebate. I immediately applied for the rebate and the Ace system validated it and told me that a check should arrive within six weeks. A few days ago I got a postcard from an outfit in Miami telling me that my submission was invalid and that I should send copies of my receipt and the product barcode to them by January 28th, in order for it to be reconsidered. They also provided a phone number for me to call with questions. When I called them this morning, the agent asked for my tracking number and when I provided it, she said my rebate would arrive within 15 days. No explanation, no arguing, no nothing. It left me with the suspicion that the entire affair has been a ruse to see if I would just give up, like so many must do. As I'm fond of saying, bastards! Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

The excitement continues to build here at Merle Wayne Sneed headquarters in anticipation of my blowup at the credit union tomorrow. Perhaps that is why I find myself typing this post, instead of being fast asleep. Or it might be the pizza I had for dinner. The green chiles taste good going down, but they linger. Any Sneed who is anybody was over this morning for our Sunday morning get together. One of the joys of being old is being surrounded by children and grandchildren. Of course, the attendees did not include the rarely mentioned, rarely seen Cletus Sneed. For the uninitiated, Cletus Sneed is our youngest and adopted son. We foolishly thought that we could change the life of a child by giving him a stable home and a loving family. Cletus is what happens when the angels of our better nature beat us senseless with their harps. Search 'Cletus' in my blog for the complete picture. Cletus did make one of his mystery calls to the house this afternoon. He has somewhere between one and three daughters (depending on who is doing the counting) with a useless young woman named Melissa. They are in a constant state of war, generally over visitation with the kids and child support. His phone call today was about Melissa and it is one I have received a hundred times. Me: Hello? Him: Hi. Did Melissa call there? Me: Why do you think she would call here? Him: Okay, thanks. (click). I never understand the point of these calls, but since they are brief and he doesn't ask for money, I let sleeping dogs lie. And by the way, in case you didn't hear, the Eagles beat the Giants in the NFL playoffs today. That means at bowling tomorrow night I don't have to listen to a big goofball named Jeff go on and on about the Giants. Jeff is one of those guys who is too old to show up wearing a Giants jersey, but he does anyway. Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

My hardware store is part of a cooperative organization that is regularly ranked in the top ten businesses in America for excellent customer service. In fact it ranked first in the Home Improvement Store category, in the 2008 JD Powers survey. Our advantage in the survey came in the areas of the helpfulness and knowledge of the staff, as well as the quality of the store facility. In the other categories, quality of merchandise, price and sales events, we ranked only so-so. People love good customer service. Here's a hardware store joke. What's the difference between Home Depot and Ace Hardware? At Ace, there is no place for the employees to hide. Think about the times you have gone into a large retailer and tried to find someone to help you. If you found someone, they were not likely to be much help. People will pay a bit more to get the help they need. In the midst of the recession, good customer service will save you and bad or even indifferent service can kill you, or at least it would if I had my way. Case in point. You my recall that on Christmas Eve I got a call from the weasels at Visa letting me know that although they knew on December 19th that some criminals had stolen my Visa Debit Card number, they did nothing. That is, until December 24th, when the aforementioned crooks stole $423.80 from my account. Then Visa canceled my card. At that point it was personal to them. Visa claims that they didn't immediately cancel my card when they first detected the irregularity because they didn't want to inconvenience me. The reality is that everything Visa does is in its best interest. Screw the cardholder. So instead, they waited around for someone to make off with my money, which was so much less inconvenient. Next came the whole paperwork business; the trip to the credit union for the sworn affidavit and then the police report. Finally, the wait for the safe return of my cash, which the credit union people assured me would be about ten days. It has been 16 and counting. Fortunately, I have $423.80 to spare, not everyone is that lucky. If this was the grocery money, I would be screwed. Imagine my surprise and irritation when a knucklehead at Vantage West Credit Union notified me by mail today that; "In accordance with our Electronic Funds Transfer Agreement, we require that written notice of these fraudulent transactions (be sent to us?) within 10 business days in order to proceed with our investigation. As of today, we have not received written notification from you in this regard, as such, your pending fraud case has been closed." It was signed Andrea Sxxxx, Deposit Servicing Specialist II. At least she specializes in having her head up her arse. As Daughter Sneed would say, "The hits just keep on coming." Well, this pisses me off and not just because the first paragraph of Andrea's letter is incomplete. I like to think of myself as the Dirty Harry of bad customer service and Andrea just made my day. Come Monday morning, she will get her notification. Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

Megan's post today about how she came to own her late Aunt's dining table and chairs, reminded me of how my father divvied up my mom's possessions after she died. My mom died suddenly, although not unexpectedly in August of 1988. She was just 63, but she had been in declining health for some time. Diabetes and a bad heart did her in. My dad called me at one or two in the morning to say that Mom had died and that he was at the hospital emergency room. I went there, along with Daughter Sneed and found that all my siblings had already arrived. After we settled up at the hospital we all went back to my folks house, where in the early morning hours my father decided it was time to settle on who got what of my mom's possessions. It was truly a truly weird experience, both in its timing and because my mom had almost nothing in the way of personal possessions. I guess it was Dad's way of dealing. Within the next day or two, my dad gave away all of my mom's clothing and the bed that she died in. He replaced it with a single bed that he slept in until he was too sick and old to live alone any longer. Almost seventeen years to the day after my mom's death, I got up in the morning and went into my dad's room to see if he was awake. I discovered that he had passed away during the night. He had come home from the hospital the previous evening. They sent him home to die and die he did. I summoned the hospice nurse to the house to do all the paperwork that must be done and then called my siblings, their families and our children to come over before Dad was removed from his room. Later after the hospice workers and the people from the funeral home had done their work, my bother, sister and I went to Dad's house and in his tradition, took what we wished to have from his effects. My dad was an infuriating guy in many ways. And by many ways, I mean M-A-N-Y ways. One was his penchant for giving things away. He bought very little, used stuff until it was worn out. He gave away anything he couldn't think of an immediate use for or thought someone else needed more than him. Nothing was more maddening that picking out a gift for Dad only to find that a relative now was enjoying it. The joke at our house was, if you wanted ideas for a gift for Dad, you just called my brother or sister and asked them what they would like, because that's where it would probably wind up anyway. I think I took only some things that I had given him over the years, chiefly a couple of really nice writing pens, still unused in their original box. Dad was a felt tip man and Bics served him just fine, thank you. I also took his WWII era desk and chair. Everything else went to the others or to the Salvation Army. Just as it should have been. Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

A woman came into the store yesterday and asked me if we sold lead mesh. Lead mesh? She meant something like screening material, only made from lead. I explained that lead mesh would likely be illegal due to toxicity, but in any event we have none. We do sell aluminum screen, I offered. She wondered if aluminum would block out frequencies as well as lead does? You know, the frequencies that 'they' are using to mess with your mind and all? She said that she had heard that lead is what you really need. This became one of those moments when decent human beings sympathize with another who is clearly disturbed. I, on the other hand, summoned our store expert on unwanted radio transmissions, a guy named Bruce, who happened to be walking by. While poor Bruce got up to speed on insidious radio transmissions, I disappeared. Bruce, who is an intrepid fellow, told her that the assistant manager was our "go to" guy on this subject and called him to help. Then Bruce vamoosed. When I last saw the poor woman, she was holding about fifty sheets of sandpaper on her head, evidently testing their frequency-blocking power. I believe I read that 200 grit works best. Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

It's time to answer a few questions posed by visitors to the Merle Wayne Sneed blog. PhD. Girl wonders if I know of Dr. Creflo Dollar and kindly sent along a video clip of Dollar, in case I didn't. Merle Wayne Sneed knows something about Creflo Dollar. He started out with Oral Roberts and had some kind of falling out. I believe that he stopped believing in Hell, whch pissed a lot of folks off. When it comes to televangelists, Merle Wayne Sneed divides them into two groups; the lying thieving snakes and Billy Graham. Creflo Dollar is not Billy Graham. Creflo Dollar teaches something called a prosperity gospel. That basically means that he will prosper at someone else's expense and if the someone else doesn't prosper, someone else ain't right with God. Too bad, so sad. Nan Patience wonders why the old lady who was busting my chops the other day about a heater, needs a heater, since we live out here in the land of palm trees and sun. Actually, Hooterville is not as far South as you might suspect. We are at 32 degrees latitude, which is about the same latitude as Charleston, S.C. In addition, Hooterville is about 2600 ft above sea level. Our low for tonight is forecast to be about 30 degrees. It gets cold here, not bitterly cold, but plenty cold enough. Nan also asks if Merle Wayne Sneed has considered the ministry. While the prospect of fleecing the sheep is tempting, I don't think I would be able to keep a straight face. That said, if anyone wants to send me cash, I'll do my best should any deities contact me on your behalf. Can't promise anything though. Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

Longtime readers know that Merle Wayne Sneed loves it when prominent men of God make the news for the wrong reasons. Whether it is Ted Haggard, Jimmy Swaggart or even the Pope himself. Ministerial sex scandals are my favorite, but just saying really stupid stuff is fun too. With that in mind, here is something from the Merle Wayne Sneed blog's favorite crazy Man of God, Pastor James DA-A-A-VID Manning, of the ATLAH World Ministries. Pastor Manning is like a car wreck. I don't want to look, but I can't help myself. Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

Yesterday marked my one-year anniversary in the exciting and growing field of retail hardware. Many thought I didn't have what it takes, but I proved them wrong. All kidding aside, this hardware gig is the best job Ive ever had, at least from a quality of life standpoint. The boss asked me "where I see myself in five years"? I'm not a 'see myself' kind of guy, especially at my age. Alive in five years is about my only aspiration. Everything else will take care of itself. I have posted about my friend Bill at the store before, but for the new readers or the hard of remembering or the in-one-ear-and-out-the-other folks, as it applies most things I say, I will repeat. Bill is the hardware god. He has a legion of elderly fans who will only take advice from Bill or from others, with Bill's approval. Sometimes his adoring public can be a pain in my butt. I was paged yesterday by a cashier named Sharon, to answer a phone call from someone asking about portable heaters. The store telephone calls are answered by the cashiers and then are directed to the appropriate person, in this case me. When I picked up the phone to answer, an elderly female voice told me that she was being helped by Sharon. I explained that I would answer her question. No dice, she wanted to talk to Sharon. I explained again and asked how I could help her? Her response, "I guess you can't", and she slammed down the phone. Perhaps ten minutes later a young fellow came into the store and with the help of Sharon, sought me out. "I'm trying to help an angry old woman get a portable heater", he told me. "Funny, I just got hung up on by an angry old woman looking for a heater." "That's her", he replied. We went to find her a heater. She had a specific heater in mind, one that matched the one she has now. God knows how long ago she bought her current one. While we looked, I got paged to the phone again and was told that it was same the old woman. The young guy picked up the call and talked to her about our progress. Eventually, we found what we thought was a suitable heater. When I left him, he was on his cell phone telling her that he couldn't find the exact one she wanted, but that he had found a similar one. Ten minutes later he was back, asking to speak to Bill. The old gal wouldn't accept the heater unless Bill said it was okay. Bill spoke to her about the situation and with his blessing, all was well. Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

This might surprise you, but people who work in hardware stores tend to be packrats. They see potential where regular people see junk. I lean toward the regular people's side in their judgment. During my previous life at Tedious Systems, I had a number of ugly encounters with people who just kept everything that came their way. At Tedious people kept paper records long past their useful life, some we pathological savers. There is an old joke about a guy who bought up thousands of 1965 calendars, in the expectation of making a fortune when 1965 rolls around again. I had a clerical support person once who saved everything, in boxes that she piled in her cubicle. I told her more than once to get rid of all the old crap, but she wouldn't, so when she went on vacation, about half her boxes of old stuff went on permanent vacation. When she got back to work she was so pissed that she had her husband come down and she loaded the remaining stuff into his truck and took it home. In the hardware store, people stash all sorts of things. Today I concentrated on cleaning out the key area, the place where we make keys. Whenever someone buys a new lock from us and asks us to rekey it to their other locks, we wind up with a set of keys for the new lock, that don't fit anything. For the most part they should be tossed out, but for years no one has done it. They have hung them on hooks, put them in bags and stuffed them in drawers. I filled a large coffee can with the hundreds of sets of keys that don't fit anything anymore. Every once and awhile you need a random set of keys. People bring in locks and ask that we rekey them to a completely new key. I saved about six sets so we would have some. During this whole process, one of my coworkers came up and told me not to toss out all useless keys, "in case we need them." I told her I saved six sets. She went into the coffee can and took some more, which she stashed in a secret location. You can lead a horse to water... We also had keys that are obsolete. Sometimes a vendor will stop producing a particular key due to low demand. I tossed out about 20 keys that were stamped "Fits Austin-Healey". Austin-Healy last made cars in 1972. Our key reference book doesn't even list Austin-Healey, so if anyone came in wanting one, we would not know how to find it anyway. It appears that every time a key became obsolete, rather than discarding the uncut blanks, people have been stashing them, just in case 1965 rolls around again. I tossed out tons of those too. The funny thing is that getting rid of junk clears out space that can be used to sell new stuff. The boss was so impressed that tomorrow I get to go through the giant box of broken lock parts and toss out most of it. And you thought you had a cool job. Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

The holiday season went out with a wimper here at the Sneed joint. I awoke this morning to find Mrs. Sneed furiously packing away the Christmas decorations. I carried them out to the special Christmas shed and put them away for another year. End of story. Noah stayed over last night so that his folks could go out to a New Year's Eve bash. They had the foresight to book a hotel room at the site, just in case there was drinking involved. I understand there was. Plus some dancing. Mrs. Sneed and yours truly took Noah to see the latest 'rodent saves the day' kid's movie this afternoon, followed by bargain hunt at a nearby department store. All Christmas decorations were on sale at 75% off and for that markdown, you have no choice but to buy some. After the movie/shopping, we met Noah's folks for dinner and everyone went home. I'm not one for New Year's resolutions so I won't be making any. My plan is to look back on 2009 in December and take credit for what went right. Those things, if any, will become my ex post facto resolutions. A sure-fire system. Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky