Archive for the ‘walmart’ Tag
Well to continue the story as I promised in the last post, we (my better-half and I) were in dire need of pumpkins. Why, I honestly don’t know but we can’t live without them apparently. We especially need to find those ever so illusive white pumpkins which are just ghostly enough to make Halloween worth celebrating. After checking prices at Walmart and Lowes the decision was made to go elsewhere so as not to feel any more extorted than normal.
These days the prices continue to climb on just about everything. The love of the almighty dollar leaves little regard for us customers and with the advent of the big box retailers the days of lower prices at roadside stands are slowly disappearing. The farmers no longer try to beat the prices of the larger stores but are certainly happy to match them. That translates to an end of bargain prices for all of us.
Fortunately if you want to spend the time and effort there are still a few farmers who’ll sell their wares at a decent price, collect their profits, and retain their customer base. It’s one of those places that we headed to after our drive to Kennebunkport and the southern coast.
As we arrive at the farm there are piles and piles of pumpkins and squash of all sizes and kinds. These folks cultivate just over a hundred acres every year and they always seem to have excellent results. They actually sell a large portion of their products to local school districts for the kids lunches. I’ve always been a firm believer about "buying local" and supporting the farmers in our area and it’s folks like these that make that happen. They also give me an excellent place to take incredible Fall pictures. Here are a few.
My better-half made her purchases of an assortment of orange and white pumpkins with a promise to return and pick up a few cornstalks and a bale of hay or two. She feels the need to reassure me that we’re almost ready for Halloween and the Fall season. I’m so relieved.
Odd Thought: I have a question. Does it mean anything at all that January is Self-Love Month? My follow-up to that question is this: Does it mean anything that the last week of the month is set aside as Meat Week? And lastly does it mean anything at all that the last Saturday of the month is National Seed Swap Day? I was just wondering, that’s all.
I have a lot of questions like that and they never seem to get answered. What possesses people to do questionable and rude things? Is it sheer stupidity or is it a complete and total disregard of every other person on the planet? In order to find answers to that question I usually spend a little time cruising around Walmart. It’s amazing just how many rude and inconsiderate people can be found in that one building.
This has been a week of Walmart for me. I was almost run down and injured by a rather large woman with a cart full of merchandise that was so full it was overflowing and falling on the floor. She pushed me out of the way in order to get 4 feet ahead of me in line at the checkout register. Being the calm and polite person that I am I quietly asked, “Ma’am just what the hell do you think your doing?” She gave me a rather dirty look, turned her back to me and began throwing her merchandise onto the register counter. I was then forced to wait even longer when she had an issue over the use of an EBT card. That’s a food stamp card for those of you not in the know. She was pissed off that the cashier was questioning her purchases of alcohol. Go figure.
How many times have you sat and patiently waited for a parking spot to clear and then have some A-hole pull in from the other direction in front of you? It happens all too often for my liking but unless your willing to risk some sort of “road rage” incident your forced to swallow your pride and just “let it go”. How many times does it have to happen before you flip out completely and create a huge scene and argument? In my younger days I was one of the guys who wouldn’t put up with that crap and came close to fisticuffs a number of times. That was when I finally became aware that there are large numbers of people out there who are total and complete morons. And don’t get me started on the rudeness displayed with cell phone usage. That’s a whole other posting that will be addressed soon.
I’m not just picking on Walmart customers because these incidents occur with people driving those big expensive SUV’s as well who think that we peons are just inconveniences to be dealt with when we interfere with their activities. More inconsiderate well-to-do A-holes.
Years ago I spent a few bucks on adhesive paper that fit my inkjet printer and printed up a number of of small bulletin cards for addressing parking lot rudeness, driving rudeness, and other sorts of inconsiderate activities that pissed me off. If someone blocked me in or parked in an inconsiderate manner I’d slap one of my adhesive bulletins on their windshield directly blocking their view from the drivers seat. It took a little elbow grease and a lot of cursing for them to remove those bulletin from the windshield but it was oh so satisfying for me as I drove away.
I think it’s time to reinvent my bulletins. I’ll refresh the wording a little and make them even more polite than usual. It has much more of an effect on rude people when you politely tell them they’re rude and inconsiderate. I’ll start carrying a supply of them with me again and begin making their lives as miserable as they make mine. By doing it this way I avoid those dangerous confrontations while still getting my points across.
Once I start passing them out I’ll keep you posted on the results. This is the only safe way I can think of to make them aware of my unhappiness and just how stupid, inconsiderate, and ignorant they seem to be.
Revenge is sweet regardless of what all those the do-gooder’s tell you.
P.S. And yes I understand that they may think that I’m rude and inconsiderate by my actions. Consider for a minute the source of that criticism and then “let it go”.
Today is my ninth day living in this one-legged hell my life has become. I’ve learned a few valuable things in these nine days and I thought I’d share them with you.
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First, don’t break your damn leg. I know it’s a bit simplistic but sometimes you just need to be told the obvious.
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Second, hope and pray your relationship is solid because it will be tested. I’ve become somewhat irritable and difficult or at least that’s what my better-half has been screaming at me.
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Third, prepare yourself for the realization that all it takes is a small bone in your leg to break to turn you into a giant dependent ball of human flesh.
I was raised to be as independent as possible and have spent my entire life just that way. I hate relying on anyone for anything. I’ve had a few times in my life where I was laid up for a day or two but nothing like this. Six to eight weeks of sitting on my ass and stumbling around the house being unable to do a damn thing. It’s incredibly frustrating to say the least. My better-half remains supportive but realizes I’m quickly going out of my mind with cabin fever.
I’ve improved my walking abilities with these crutches but it’ll never be enough to make this situation bearable. Since I’m unable to carry coffee and walk on crutches at the same time it took a day or two for me to solve that problem. A sealable carry-mug that fits nicely into my pocket was the solution. I can now walk/hop/drag a leg to the kitchen, retrieve some coffee, and return to my chair. It sounds stupid I know but it’s a major accomplishment for me.
Thank God for my X-Box and IPad. Those two devices are the only things keeping me from going bat-shit crazy. I’ve always spent a lot of time on the X-Box but now it’s totally out of control. I’m afraid I may be developing a serious case of X-Box thumbs. The IPad has allowed me to connect with hundreds of other addicted Scrabble fanatics to play Word HD with Friends. A great little App that allows me to continuously play multiple games with people from around the country. The time really flies by very quickly when I’m focused in those games.
I received some good news on my follow-up visit to the orthopedist today. The leg is healing properly and no surgery will be required. I’m to spend the next two weeks doing things much the same as I’ve been doing. That news raised my morale a bit and hopefully in two more weeks I’ll be permitted to put some weight on the leg which will really jump start this recovery.
One other quick note. My better-half suggested a trip to Walmart today to pickup a few items and somehow strong-armed me into riding on one of their infamous electric carts. I put up a good fight but there was no talking to her. For years I’ve bitched and complained about certain people on those carts blocking aisles and being a general nuisance to other shoppers. Well, today I joined the elite ranks of the Walmart Disabled Shoppers Group. I was hoping for a Walmart hat or T-shirt but sadly I was out of luck. They wanted to give me a pair of pink sweat pants that had “JUICY” on the ass but I declined. Pink just isn’t my color. It clashes way too much with my purple sweatshirt and my orange Budweiser baseball cap. That’s my official Walmart shopping outfit.
We’re headed back home now where I’ll enjoy another afternoon of Scrabble, Tiger Woods 2011, and really bad TV. I must have done something really terrible in a past life to deserve this karmic ass-kicking.
Doing a journal entry today is what I hope will be the beginning of a lazy day. My better-half is gone until Monday to see her parents in Delaware and to spend a little quality time with her sister in Maryland. She’s on a short four day vacation but guess what, it’s also a vacation for me and the cat.
The cat doesn’t say much but I know he’s been enjoying himself a great deal. He finally has total control and ownership of her half of the bed and is making the most of it. He’s not all that big but if he sprawls out he can cover a pretty large area. He hasn’t left the bed for more than a few minutes since she departed and I’m sure I can anticipate an interesting evening on Monday when she returns. Since the cat can be almost as stubborn as my better-half it should be quite a show.
I was able to get a lot of tasks completed yesterday and spent a few hours running from store to store. Shopping is always a chore because I find myself more interested in people watching than roaming mindlessly around looking for deals. I avoided Walmart completely because people watching there is no longer a challenge. Weirdo’s, freaks, and oddballs as far as the eye can see and that’s just the employees.
I visited another local establishment to look for a few used books and possibly a movie or two. I picked up a copy of Steven Spielberg’s Artificial Intelligence. It was a little cheaper than I thought it should be which usually means that it sucks and unfortunately it did. After watching it last night I discovered that even the great Spielberg can drop the ball every so often. I dearly love science-fiction but this move was a real stinker. Lesson learned, buy no movies from that store that are priced less than four dollars.
My dieting continues and I’m into my third month. My bodies adjusted to both the changes in my diet as well as the ever increasingly difficult exercise program. The workouts have become a normal part of my weeks activities and I’m finally comfortable with them. I’m down twenty-five pounds and going strong. I hit a plateau that lasted for almost a week where my weight refused to budge but after adjusting the workout routine I finally broke through it. It was frustrating as hell to be working so hard and seeing no results. At that time I was exercising twice a day, seven days a week. I cut back to one session a day, five days a week, and almost instantly began to lose weight again. The more weight I lose the harder it’s becoming but I just have to persevere and stay mentally strong. I’m more than half-way to my goal and that keeps me going.
As I mentioned, today is a down day for me. Nothing too strenuous, no exercising, and no errand running or shopping. I plan on watching a little TV and reading a lot. The Maine weather has gotten considerably colder in the last week so staying in and enjoying the quiet time is the perfect thing to do. Nothing is better than a hot coffee, a good book, and a lot of peace and quiet.
This is my 364th straight day of posting without either graphics or catchy headlines to grab your attention. My goal of one complete year without missing a day will be completed tomorrow. Hooray for me. I’ll be starting the second year of this blog with a fresh outlook, a clear head, catchy headlines, and all the photo’s necessary to keep it interesting.
Everyday seems like an adventure to me and not always in a good way. I constantly people watch like everyone else but most things that make me the craziest occur in retail stores, specifically at the checkouts. I worked for retail companies for almost twenty years and hated every minute of it. Companies are always preaching "Good Customer Service" but it never seems to happen. The reason is simple. You need good people as customers to start with. Here’s a partial list of recent things that make me want to scream and run from the building.
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Store Checkout Lines – Just once I’d love to get into a checkout line and be rung out immediately and leave smiling and happy. I’ve been waiting for that for decades but it never seems to occur. It’s always the wrong lane for me. I could have one guy in front of me with six items and as soon as I line up behind him the cashier has to page for a price check or has to send an employee back into the store for a price because no one responded to the damn page. If it’s like this for everyone else then we have an even a bigger problem than I first thought.
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Express Lanes – Don’t even get me started. Fourteen items or twenty items, it doesn’t matter how many. I guarantee the person in front of me will have fifty freaking items. If you say something then you’re the asshole. If you don’t then you end up being pissed off all day and taking it out on someone else either in another store or at home.
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Line Jumpers – The store opens a new register when your third in line at a busy one. Before you can react, the people five places behind you in your line dash to the new register. I have a new term for you to mull over, "Store Rage". It’s these little things that begin to accumulate over the months and result in bigger and more interesting arguments at the most inopportune times.
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English Speaking Cashiers – I love diversity as much as the next guy but you can’t hire people who don’t know the language of the customers they’re taking care of. Simple right? I guess not. Part of the problem is that out of every five cashiers hired, four either fail the background check or the drug test.
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Chatty Cashiers – I hate to say this but they’re normally a chubby women in her fifties who wants to be everyone’s best friend and confidant. She spends more time yakking about stupid stuff than checking your purchases out. Please, shut the hell up, smile, and get me the hell out of the store.
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Stupid Customers- Don’t show up at the registers with a bunch of products that are either missing bar codes or price tags. Don’t ask the cashiers to do price checks for you while there are twenty people in line behind you. Could someone be any more ignorant? It happens all the time.
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Coupon Freaks – I love nothing better than being behind a women with forty items in her cart and a stack of thirty coupons that must be checked individually. The only thing worse is when the cashier discovers that more than half of the coupons are outdated or the customer is trying to scam her using incorrect products. Do your freaking shopping at three in the morning for God’s sake where you take all the time you like sorting through your bag full of coupons and the women with Food Stamps behind you can just wait. She’s probably just buying booze and cigarettes anyway.
I could continue this rant for another thirty paragraphs but I hope you’re getting my point. This posting was prompted by my last twenty visits to Walmart, Target, Kohl’s, and a host of others. I actually feel a lot better after venting like this but it’ll start building again as soon as I go shopping the next time. I really don’ t anticipate any improvement so expect another posting just like this in September. It’ll take that long to really piss me off again.
The straw that broke my back this time came to my attention from my better-half who still works for a major retailer. She’s front-end manager who’s required to babysit a large group of girls (not women) in their late teens and early twenties who really don’t want to work. They apparently live for drinking, partying, and screwing everyone they can get their hands on. The turnover is high as you’d expect but hiring really good employees is difficult when they pay slave wages. They recently hired a cashier who barely spoke English and who didn’t understand our monetary system. And they wonder why their customers are outraged when a cashier can’t make the correct change even after the register tells her how much it is.
I won’t even start with my experiences with the bastards using cell phones and texting while I wait impatiently in line behind them. Kill me I’m begging you.
Thank God for Amazon, Ebay, and Internet shopping.
Another day spent dealing with snow. Me and my best friend, my new snow thrower, spent some quality time together this morning trying to keep up with a minor snow storm that dumped another four inches of snow on us. I can’t begin to tell you what a great purchase that snow thrower was for me. I was initially telling everyone that if I bought one it might never snow again. As usual my cynical side got the best of me. It’s only the middle of January and I’ve already used it three times and I’m sure there’s more coming.
My better-half is off today and it’s been "task" day for her and by association also for me. Clean this, dust that, pick up those, and on and on it goes. At least in the summer I can escape from these kind of days by taking my camera and disappearing, with her or without her. This snow just complicates matters making disappearing much more difficult. Thankfully our home is large enough where I can actually disappear for short periods and she can’t seem to find me.
After her frenzy of cleaning we made our obligatory visit to the local Walmart. It’s always a fun place to visit when you just want to get out of the house before you scream out loud. Walmart never disappoints no matter when you visit.
We got to the parking lot and between the piles of snow and the puddles of melting snow it was a real mess. I took maybe ten steps from my car and found my first Walmart surprise of the day, a wadded up pair of what appeared to be well worn panty hose just lying there looking up at me. I normally see something like that and then try to imagine under what circumstances someone either throws away or drops their panty hose in a Walmart parking lot. Did some careless woman open her purse to put her panties back on and drop her panty hose. Maybe it was a couple of Walmart associates taking their mid-day break for a quickie in the car. Maybe it was a couple of extremely horny customers who just had to take a jump in the Walmart lot so they could brag to their friends about it. The possibilities are endless but also quite entertaining.
As I entered the store the greeter as always woke up just long enough to hand me a flyer of some sort and then nodded off again. He was a fine looking specimen who was probably seventy years old but looked a hundred. The place was packed as usual with quite the assortment of customers who always seem to be clogging the specific aisle where I’m shopping. I tried to cut down a side aisle to avoid some of them and nearly tripped over some mid-twenties woman sitting on the floor with all her belongings strewn around her reading a freaking magazine. She gave me that look like I was the person doing something wrong. Being the calm and relaxed person that I am I politely asked in my best Walmart voice "Are you sure you have enough room?" I hate when people attempt to ignore me as she tried to do so I continued with "Could you please more your ass so I can get by?" Again I got “the look” but she finally gathered her possessions and moved along. She left the magazine lying on the floor because God forbid she might have strained something important putting it back in the rack.
I saw her later loitering around in the Dunkin Donuts where she was huddled having a heavy duty conversation with a few of her freaky, pierced, and filthy friends. They were discussing the issues of the day concerning the real differences between having an actual Dunkin Donuts mug versus using the environmentally damaging Styrofoam. I again received "the look" as she whispered to her group to tell them what an asshole I was. I immediately got another look from all of them as a group which made me want to take a bow, but I didn’t.
In the back of my mind I was thinking the whole time that just maybe she was the owner of those wadded up panty hose and finding them was a karmic warning for me. Oh well, another minor annoyance sponsored by my local Walmart.
“Life is Good”, or so said on some A-hole’s T-shirt at the pharmacy. I hate being negative but in groups of more than two most people suck.
A beautiful day in the neighborhood.
Well today’s December 16th, leaving eight more shopping days till Christmas. I’ve been trying desperately to find a little more Christmas spirit but it’s been difficult. In years past I never bothered to make much of an effort because I didn’t care all that much.
My better-half has been doing her best to get me going and last night she decided a trip to Walmart was necessary. She seemed to think that if I listen to some Christmas music and check out some possible gifts, I’ll get that old feeling back. That included of course a cruise through the toy department looking for gifts for her new grandson who’s all of two months old.
We arrived with the best of intentions but as most of you know Walmart makes me crazy year-round not just at Christmas. The lunatic fringe was out in droves shopping their asses off and wearing Christmas outfits that were not only indescribable but worthy of immediate arrest for felony bad taste. I know one thing for sure, I’m not a big fan of the recent fad at Walmart of wearing pajamas pants to shop in. Not only is it a stupid thing to do but OMG could they find anything uglier to wear. I saw no less than five somewhat normal looking human beings wearing them and of course they were all women.
As we entered the Toy Department I suddenly found myself in a new and unfamiliar situation. I was being made to shop for a two month old child’s toys. Doesn’t my better-half realize that the new grand child is still trying to focus his eyes and to figure out what those five things are at the end of each of his arms. I decided to go along with it but immediately discovered what I mistake I’d made. OMG there were freaking toys as far as the eye could see. In the car I indicated that possibly a Lego set would be something to consider but there must have been a hundred freaking Lego sets filling two aisles. My head was spinning just trying to take it all in.
A short distance down the aisle were a young married couple and their child’s grandparents. They weren’t actually fighting but the discussion was a bit heated. If those four already experienced parents and grandparents couldn’t figure these things out, what chance did I have. That would be absolutely NONE. I went through the motions for another twenty minutes and we eventually left empty handed. Another twenty minutes of my life I’ll never get back.
As we left Walmart the unthinkable began happening. What’s Christmas without an effing snow storm. The radio weather experts tell me that by tomorrow we’ll have 6-10 inches of accumulation. Yippee! I think I’ll go home and find my snow shoveling gear and my magic shovel.
I’M SLOWLY SLIDING TOWARDS THE “I HATE CHRISTMAS” ZONE, HELP ME!
First we had Black Friday and the week long barrage of advertisements that preceded it. The bombardment was brutal as always and made it virtually impossible for me to comfortably watch TV, listen to the radio, or read my emails. Spam was worse than usual on the net and there was just no let up. Some time Friday afternoon I expected some relief when the end of Black Friday was in sight. Wrong! Visiting a few stores during that week was a huge disappointment for me too. In years past the Christmas holiday really didn’t take off until the weekend following Black Friday, but no more. For example, Lowes was setting Christmas displays two weeks before Black Friday and I can only assume they were following the example set by the Big Daddy retailer, Walmart. I was already sick of the Christmas season in late September with their slashed prices, great deals, giveaways, and enough coupons mailed to kill off a large forest. It was just plain stupid but I was certain it would soon decline in frequency. Wrong again.
I wake up bright and early on Sunday and the barrage had changed focus. It’s now the beginning of the ramp up to Cyber Monday. I wonder what genius thought up that pain-in-the-ass promotion. Chances are good it was a combination of people from Best Buy, Apple, and of course Amazon. My mail box was suddenly filled anew with another round of nonsense. The old Circuit City brand that closed it’s retail establishments five years ago is now alive and well as an internet business and returned once more to bother me. Prices were being lowered again and again with the drumbeat continuing on both television and radio. I was forced to abandon electronic media for a day or two and just sit quietly and read a good book.
Monday arrived and again I was hoping for a reprieve from the advertising onslaught with the end of the Cyber Monday debacle. Wrong again. Late Monday I began hearing a new phrase being bandied about, Cyber Week! These effing people are relentless in their need to make most of us as miserable and brainwashed as possible. Maybe next year November can become Cyber Month and Christmas resets can begin in August. This country is on advertising overload and has been for quite some time. I recall a time when cable TV was first introduced and they called it Pay TV. We were assured that with the advent of cable we could watch television commercial-free for just a small monthly payment. That claim lasted about a week before they began to clog the new cable airways with ads and began jacking up the monthly fee.
I sat with a stop watch one evening earlier this year and decided to determine how much time was spent on actual TV programming. In a standard one half hour sitcom we’re being force-fed approximately ten minutes of boring, annoying, and stupid advertisements. That means for a two hour movie special we are fed forty minutes of ads. It won’t be long before what used to be an hour special will become a three and a half hour advertising fiasco. When will it end? I think the answer to that would be “Never”.
We aren’t permitted any ad free time to sit and think about anything but spend, spend, spend. Walmart seems to be the trend setter in all things retail and it doesn’t take long for Target, Best Buy, and all of the others to follow suit. Walmart is constantly in our face on TV and upon arrival at their stores you’ll find endless numbers of signs posted everywhere. You enter the building and there are signs for the Donut Shop, Pharmacy, Bank, Eyeglasses, Beauty Shop and even Nail Salons. The entire building is covered in signs for just about every product they carry. Their latest and greatest devices to drive me crazy are those little LCD screens located on end-caps that activate as you approach. Another sales pitch for some bullshit useless product I didn’t want to begin with. My first introduction to those little devices scared the crap out of me as I was walking along minding my own business and all of a sudden I have a female voice bellowing at me to buy some stupid product I really didn’t need. Criminally annoying.
My rant is over for now. The problem with all of these advertisements is two fold. First, they seem to work which gives the companies incentive to continue using them and second, it gives them the power to manipulate large numbers of the population to do their bidding. As always my bitch about the Media in general is their constant attempts to control not only politics in this country but everything else as well. If that doesn’t give you pause and scare you a little then we’ve already lost the battle.
I’m leaving now because I feel the need to scream and then run to Walmart and buy something stupid. Merry Effing Christmas!
Well, we’re ten days into the month of November and it’s hard to believe that just a few short weeks ago I was sitting on my deck wearing a T-shirt and shorts and enjoying the warm weather. In my attempt to be optimistic I refuse to think that for the next long, boring, and weather beaten five months I’ll be housebound.
Today is a day of odds and ends. I first went to the granddaddy of all retailers, Walmart, to pick up a few things and to enjoy a reasonably nice day. Walmart as usual is a freaking zoo. Just pulling into the parking lot is an adventure where all those years of amusement park bumper cars finally paid off. It’s a Friday morning in November at 7:15 am and I was hard-pressed to find a decent parking spot. The lot was full, people wandering everywhere, and none paying the slightest attention to the moving vehicles. It was a good morning to play “idiot hockey” and test the reflexes of all the late night partiers stumbling into the Dunkin Donuts inside the Walmart. They were pretty nimble and were still moving quickly enough to avoid a vinyl bumper up their ass. I guess I’m showing my lack of patience but I really don’t care. The only thing worse than a discourteous driver is a discourteous pedestrian and I’m surprised and shocked that more of them aren’t seriously injured on a regular basis. Oh well enough of my complaining it’s time to get into the store, do my shopping, and get the hell out.
The store was fairly crowded with the normal oddballs and yahoo’s roaming around and giving us other humans something to talk about. I needed a few dietary supplements so I wandered over towards the pharmacy. As I’m walking down the aisle near the condoms I overhear two women in a rather heated discussion about which ones were the best? Should we get ribbed or lubricated? You can’t buy that size, he’s not that big. This went on for a few minutes and I found a label to read on a nearby product because I didn’t want to miss anything. I had to chuckle a few times and try not to be too obvious but my presence didn’t seem to faze them at all. They were reading the box descriptions out loud to each other, comparing notes, and laughing hysterically. Gone are the days when we men were forced to sneak into drugstores and buy condoms on the QT. I suppose it’s only fair these days that I’m occasionally required to buy feminine hygiene products for my better-half.
I thought about those ladies and their conversation all the way home. I’ve never been a big fan of condoms and when possible I wouldn’t use them. Fortunately for me when I was acting wild and crazy STD’s weren’t as a big an issue as they are today. All I had to do then was determine if the woman I was pursuing was on the pill or not. If not, I proceeded on to the next possible partner. The way things are these days I wouldn’t attempt sex with a any partner unless I wore a body condom. Bearing all that in mind when I got home I decided to do a little research on condoms. I have a fairly extensive library of books containing tons and tons of totally useless information and trivia. It took me about 10 min. to find what I was looking for and I’m making it available to you free of charge. You just can’t have enough information about condoms.
Condoms have been with us much longer than you might have imagined. Condoms are supposedly named after the apocryphal,”Dr. Condom”, or Conton, who is supposed to have made them for Charles II, out of lamb’s intestines, which were dried and then well oiled. The mail sheath, however, had been around long before the time of Charles II. Before the time of Christ, the Chinese made them with oiled silk paper (the first lubricated condoms). It is rumored that Roman soldiers would make condoms from the muscle tissue of their defeated foes. By mid-evil times, the spread of syphilis increased the use of condoms greatly. In the 1800s condoms were made from animal intestines that were soaked in an alkaline solution, scraped, disinfected with the vapor of burning brimstone, washed, insulated, dried, cut to approximately 7 inches, and fitted with a ribbon on the open end. The Catholic Church wasn’t too crazy about this prophylactic profusion and in 1826 Pope Leo the XIII condemned their use. Despite the objections of his Holiness, condoms were here to stay!
Making this detailed history of condoms available should be considered my November public service announcement.
You’re very welcome.
everyuselessthing.com 