Irwin Is the End of the Universe

Lewis Black once spoke about the end of the universe being in Houston. There was a Starbucks across the street from another Starbucks. Well, that was awhile ago and it appears that it’s spreading.

Irwin, PA is now the new “End of the Universe”. And it’s much worse. First, National City got bought up by PNC and instead of making the existing one a First Niagara, it became another PNC. Then, the Walmart finally went in on Barnes Lake Road. It wasn’t bad enough that Hills and Ames succumbed to the pressure of the low cost retail giant a few miles away. Now, we have one here at the scene of the crime.

Finally, they began opening new stores around Walmart hoping to get their cast offs. Now, there is a Starbucks on one side of Route 30 and on the other, there is a Target, with a Starbucks inside it. How the F@#$ did Irwin get to be so high falutin’ that it needed more than one Starbucks? We can’t keep businesses in the shopping centers around it. The Norwin Cinemas is now a gym. The Blockbuster is now an urgent care center. Payless Shoes is now an eye doctor’s office.

Well played universe… well played.

Walton's Moving Castle

Yesterday was my daughter’s fourth birthday. Because she was born right after Independence Day we find ourselves double planning her birthday; one for the weekend, which usually involves a cookout of some sort and one for her actual birth date.

This year, her birthday fell on a Tuesday, so we asked her what she wanted for dinner on her birthday. She said pancakes. Funny kid. I was fine with this and asked if she wanted to go to Bob Evans. She said she wanted to go to the ‘other’ pancake place. At first, I wasn’t sure what she was talking about. She doesn’t exactly have all the skills of reading under her belt, but she can identify a place by the signage. For instance, she calls McDonald’s, Old McDonald’s and Dairy Queen, Women’s. So, when she says the ‘Other Pancake Place’ she can only mean IHOP.

We’ve only taken her to IHOP three times in her life, but it has made an impression on her. In fact, we only get to go maybe once a year because it’s on our way to the beach. We usually stop off at one around Fredericksburg, VA, off of I-95. The closest IHOP to our house is 45 minutes away in Uniontown or Robinson Township.

My wife and I have been lobbying for one to be put in Irwin for years. They bulldozed a local restaurant/bar/six pack shop called Angelo’s a few years back and while we hoped against hope for an IHOP, they built a Howard Hanna office, instead. This was right after the housing bubble had collapsed and baffled me.

Still, I was up for driving 45 minutes for some Butter Pecan syrup and after all, it was my kid’s birthday. Why not?

Now, my wife asked me if I knew how to get to the one in Uniontown. I said, “Sure, it’s right next to Walmart.” Growing up, I had gone to that shopping plaza off of Mcclellandtown Rd. a number of times. There was an Italian Oven right off the highway and across from it was Cherry Tree Square and the Walmart. Of course, I hadn’t been there in about 20 years but still, how hard is it to remember how to get there? And besides, it’s Walmart. Can’t be hard to find.

After driving 45 minutes, I finally reached the shopping plaza and could not find Walmart. It was baffling to me. I could already see the steam rising off my wife’s ears because we have been under the gun to get the house in order for the cook out party, this Saturday. Wasting an evening, driving around Fayette Nam was not her idea of fun, especially with the ninjas out there sneaking around.

I decided to stop into Kmart and ask where the IHOP was. I felt bad asking a Kmart employee where the Walmart was. She said, go back out here, make a right, go up and make another right. I said, “Right by the Walmart.” She said, “Yes.”

See, I knew it was there.

After a couple of wrong turns and a detour around the Uniontown Mall parking lot, we finally found Walmart. It looked nothing like I remembered. Granted, my memory isn’t what it used to be, but honestly, how hard is it to find a Walmart in Fayette County. There should be huge neon signs with spot lights and wacky waving arm inflatable tube men pointing the way. It’s like Mecca. Yet, this store sat out in a field like Beaver Stadium at Penn State’s Campus. Imagine a huge stadium rising out of a cow field where you literally walk off of the pasture and onto the concrete steps. Same thing here. It was like Field of Rollbacks. If you build it and sell cheap Chinese manufactured products, they will come.

My wife was all, “See, you had no idea where it was.”

I told her, “It was right next to the Walmart, like I said.”

“But you didn’t know where the Walmart was.” She shouted back.

“Honestly, it was not here last time I came up here. They must have moved it.”

I know how dumb that sounded but honestly, they have done that. The Greensburg Walmart got torn down years ago and they moved it further down Route 30 East. In its place they put a Sam’s Club. It was possible.

Once we got inside, I asked the server if I was nuts. Turns out, they moved the Walmart about a year ago, according to our server. “See! I’m not nuts. They moved it. How the hell could I have known that? It just happened.”

In any case, I got my Butter Pecan syrup, my kid got her pancakes and she ate for free because it was Tuesday because she was under 12 and it was between 4-8pm. And, yes, they did move the Walmart. Huzzah!

Zombies Love Walmart

Since reading the Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z, I often wondered where I would go during a zombie outbreak.  Would I stay home and try to survive on what defenses I could muster or would I pack up the clan and head to a shelter.   We all know both of those options lead to disaster from watching countless movies.  Even going to the mall is risky, but I figured that, in this day and age, if the often thought yet really improbable ever happened I would just go to the one place that had everything for my survival, Walmart.  

Walmart has it all, food, weapons and supplies of all sorts.  I could sack out there for awhile, using it as a shelter.  I could survive on the food in the store while stocking up on medical supplies and weapons  fom the sporting goods section.  However, I have changed my thought process based on one reason and one reason only. Walmart would be open.   If anyone believes otherwise, see here.  Turns out, even in a flood, Walmart remains open.  Debate on the nature of the staffing procedures during such a disaster are ever present.  Were the employees asked to stay or forced to stay.  Did they chose to stay or was there an unspoken rule that if they chose to go home, their jobs or at least their employment in good standing would be in jeopardy.  The response from Walmart was "They chose to stay." 

That means if there was a zombie outbreak, going to Walmart would only be an option if you really had shopping to do because it looks like they'll keep the doors open, even if undead hordes are advancing on the store.   Nice work. 

I Don't Know Is Not An Answer

Having worked in the customer service field a number of years in both the food industry and corporate office environment I can safely say that once in a while you kind of have to make shit up. I’m not talking total lie about something but you can recognize a foul up or potential issue and while it may be of little impact to fix, the perception by a customer that you’ve fouled up can be devastating.

Case in point. This weekend I spent both days helping my sister-in-law move. It was much my like my own disaster of moving from one place to the other. Limited time. Limited help. Multitude of stuff. I caught lunch on the fly from McDonald’s and ate it while driving on the turnpike from my place to hers.

Now, I already have a prepared sense of “This will get screwed up” with this particular location but what makes matters worse is the fact that it has a double drive thru. Of course I ended up embarrassing my wife during the whole process.

First off, when you get to the speaker to give your order they come on with this, “Thank you for blah blah, would you like to try a Filet O Fish value meal.” I just said, “No.” My wife looked at me like, “Prick, much?” I told her that it’s a prerecorded greeting and that I’m not responding to an actual person. They come on afterwards. Sure enough, the voice taking my order was different than the one asking me to buy a Fish sandwich. In fact, who knows if the real person I’m speaking to is even in this store?

Needless to say, we placed the order and then took turns with the other cars getting in line to pay. The first window took my money and had the right order. The second one was manned by some 15 year old kid who proceeded to hand me three bags. Now, I know we bought a lot of food but three bags full? I said, “Um, are you handing me one or all three?” He paused and then took the bags back in and slid the window shut. “Ok.” He opened back up after conferring with someone and said, “Do you want to just pull into the parking lot and we’ll bring your food out to you?” I said sure, but then felt a little impish and wanted to just joke with the kid, “What happened to my order?” He looked at me and said, “I don’t know. They just stuck me in this window.” My jovial spirit lessened, I looked at him, as he retreated from my minimum throttling distance, and said, “That’s not an answer.” By now my wife was getting peeved  and told me to. “Just park it.” I said, “Come on, that wasn’t an answer. At least he could have lied to me and said the Fryalator was down or the Hamburglar stole my quarter pounder. ‘I don’t know’ is a crap answer. “

“You’re embarrassing me I don’t want them spitting in my food.” My wife said. You have to remember, this is the same woman who worked in a job where she once told a customer to shove a turkey up his ass in front of her boss. This was after he complained about her not being sympathetic towards his plight. Meanwhile, she was doing more than humanly possible to find his Thanksgiving order and eventually figured it out where someone less committed to a job would just say, “I don’t know.” And call it a day. And again, this weekend, she was getting her boots ready to kick the ass of the people her sister were renting the house off of over all these problems to which I said, “They know that your sister has to move in, this weekend, and you are spoiling for a fight that could give them the inkling to say, ‘Fine, don’t live here.’” After a few minutes the manager (aka man with the key to the register) appeared and gave us our order. We were on our way, and I bit down on the tongue of frustration and waited until we were out of the parking lot to press the matter. “Look, you’ve worked in this kind of job. Did you act like that at 15?” She said no although she did have her share of moments where her thumb might have pressed a little hard on someone’s tomato. I said, “You took pride in what you did. If I would give that response to someone at my job, I’d have my ass working at McDonald’s next to numb nuts there.”

Let me clarify something. I am not meaning that my job is all that glamorous and above someone who works at McDonald’s. I am simply saying that if I chose to handle myself in such a fashion I would be in the drive thru hole along with that kid because they were willing to hire him with that level of discipline. I don’t care if you work at Walmart or Wall Street, when you work with customers or the public you conduct yourself in a way that doesn’t make them become a former customer. Saying “I don’t know” is the same as saying, “I don’t care. I’m just here for a paycheck.” You find out or at least you give a reason that satisfies the customer until you can rectify the problem. While I understand the value of having teenagers work in a job that can teach them discipline and respect I don’t think that the management of those companies takes a hard look at how those employees are actually obtaining those habits if they are at all.

It’s hard to have a teen comprehend the value of customer service since they are sometimes working a job because their parents want them to. I used to dread my old company because of the lack of good workers they hired over the need to throw bodies at the job. I would come in at 7:00 AM and do my work and fix their mistakes because they were too busy screwing around at night, more worried about going out to party then actually doing a good job. In fact, one instance where I had worked a 14 hour shift I nearly lost it. I had come in that morning, set up a lunch and took care of meetings, worked the lunch, turned over the lunch into a wedding and then bartended and served dinner for the wedding. After dinner I was supposed to be relieved to go home but couldn’t until a particular person came out to take my bar. Now, this guy was a bit of a slack so I knew exactly where to find him. He was back in the boiler room, in the dark, blazing up and I said, “You want to come take my bar so I can go home.” I then went to my boss and said, “You know why I’m still here? Because (blank) is back in the boiler room getting stoned.” She walked back but dismissed the smell of weed for cigarette smoke. I said, “If he was smoking a cigarette, then why was he hiding in the boiler room, in the dark, instead of going out into the courtyard like everyone else?” Guess what her answer was? “I don’t know.” Now you know why it was my former job.

If anyone under the age of 20 actually reads this stuff do yourself a favor, learn some discipline and some tact. I know it’s not cool to be a company man and play by the rules. I’ve been there. I refused to follow the ambiguous rules that left me open to interpret them because I didn’t want to be considered un-cool. You make more friends with the in crowd of kids if you act all “I don’t give a shit” but what does it really get you? Have you ever seen Falling Down? Exactly. Some people don’t like “I don’t know” as an answer and they’re willing to take their frustrations out on you. Is it worth it to you? Don’t answer that.

Receipt After Me, "I Am Not a Crook."

Imagine, if you will, you are shopping in your favorite vanilla flavored big box store for some goods that were made overseas. You check out at the cashier, paying for every item and upon being handed your receipt, you shove it into the bottom of your pocket or purse beneath three pounds of crap. Then, you walk three feet to the exit where some poor bastard is standing by the door. As you make your way towards the exit, the greeter or whoever it is stops you by, asking to see your receipt.


Now, you have two options. You can drop your bags and dig around in your pockets for that receipt or you can say, “No thank you, and keep walking.” In either case, you may find yourself spending more time in the store than you planned.


So, what is it about a receipt checker that has all the net heads and geeks online so much in a tizzy? This is a hotly debated topic, well…at least over at the Consumerist where every other story is about someone being “detained” at a big box store like Walmart or Best Buy. After all, the ramifications are pretty low in comparison to what people think is one step away from having to carry papers like some Eastern Europe Cold War era country.


The idea behind checking of receipts is about theft and loss prevention. Although, a lot of places will tell you that it is a movement to ensure, you the consumer, are not ripped off on your purchases. Frankly, I don’t see how that works because I was already ripped off when I paid the prices I did for the items in my bags. But that it is another story about whether I should really keep shopping at stores that I feel are expensive. Yet, is there really any correlation between some Joe Schmoe who is being paid minimum wage to check my receipt and the total disintegration of the Constitution of the United States? No. This is about defiance of authority, rallying against corporate greed and just being a dick. But hey, I love doing all three when it suits me.


Frankly, I shop at Best Buy, pay for my items and then instinctively have my receipt at the ready when I leave. It’s almost Pavlovian conditioning when I see a yellow shirt at the door. Yellow shirt, receipt out and ready. Never did I imagine I could just say “No, Thank you” and be on my way. I never realized I was within my rights to refuse showing my receipt at a regular store. Now, I know full well when I go to Sam’s Club that I have to show my receipt when I leave. I signed up for that when I bought a membership there. But there is nothing that says I have to show my receipt to the yellow shirt at the door of a Best Buy. And even though affiliated with Sam’s Club, I am not obligated to show my receipt to the sleeveless smocked ones at the doors to Walmart. Actually, I’ve never had them check my receipt going out.


The short answer is the motto of the Greek Goddess Nike who says, “Just do it.” Who really cares? I don’t believe I’m surrendering any rights by doing so. But there are these fanatical constitutionalists who believe that receipt checking is one step away from putting up the Berlin Wall.


The long answer is that, sometimes, I just don’t feel like being a team player and hate these intrusive disruptions to my flow…sounds like a urologist needs to be called. People who have the sole job of keeping me from leaving some place are that much more the enemy. When I shop in the mall and that greasy guy at the kiosk tries to sell me crushed oyster pearl cream or a nail file made of diamonds or that stupid octopus thing that massages your head, I leap into action.  This just happened over the Christmas holiday.  He saw me moving quickly and actually ran, RAN, around the little cart and attempted to get between me and a store and said, “Sir, can I show you this…blah blah blah.” To which I said, “No, thank you” He then continued to press by saying, “Well, then can I ask you a question.?” To which I said, “Actually, no you cannot,” and went about my way.


These guys are ten times worse than any receipt checker, but it’s that running of interference when you are in motion that grinds my gears. I know the guy at the door of the big box store is just doing his job and nine times out of ten they really don’t even check the receipt so I could hold up one from another store. But every so often you get that one person drunk on authority, or as Cartman calls it, a-thor-it-tye. This is the a-hole that causes me to dig deep in my pocket and pull out a middle finger. This is the guy I am willing to go rounds with just because he shot first with a snotty attitude or look of entitlement. He is the one I will say, “No, Thank you,” to and hope he tries to get all super cop on me. Perhaps I will try it, once, just to see what happens. You will probably read all about it on the Consumerist….or the police blotter.

So, what are your thoughts on receipt checking?