MADE IN CHINA?

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Last week I stopped at my local Waldbaum’s supermarket to get a few things.

In America, when we go into a supermarket, the door should be on the right and the exit door is on the left. This is the way it should be, and I like it that way. I don’t ask for much in my dotage, just don’t fix it if it isn’t broke, leave it alone, and don’t make it complicated for me.

So I get out of my car on this beautiful spring day, a song in my heart and a lilt to my step, as I approach the entrance to the supermarket. Other old people surround me so I don’t feel alone. I go to the automatic door on my right and there is a lady standing behind the door looking to get out. I look up at the door and it says: ‘EXIT’!

I side step to my left and it says on the door: ‘ENTRANCE’. This destroys my karma for the day: it will be down hill from here on out. I enter and look around for the items I need and go to pay for them. I use a debit card and try very hard to follow the instructions without incident. I mean, how hard can this be? It is two each of an item and there are two items. I am waiting on line for the lady in the 12 items or less line ahead of me to finish paying for her 50,000 items and dispute the price of one thing and throw in the coupons for a nice mix of aggravation and piss-off technique. Finally I get my turn, and the things are rung up. I wait for the little reader to tell me to swipe my card, I swipe, and punch in the code, it asks if the amount is OK, I punch ‘yes’, do I want cash back, I say ‘yes’, then realize too late I don't, so we start all over. I finally get it right and am leaving the store, yup, going to my right and looking at a whole bunch of people trying to get in.

I have a feeling the door installer was a Chinaman who installed his first door in America with the one I was trying to negotiate with!

Getting out of the store and heading for my car I see a little red car with an old hunched over man just getting into his, v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y! I think if I hurry, I can get out of the parking lot before he does and I won’t be held up any more. I raced to my car just as he is about to close his car door. My automatic key does not respond like it usually does just being in my pocket! I shake my hip, nothing. I shake it violently, still nothing. I will have to take it out of my pocket, and as I realize that, he is starting up his car! I am panicking: I reach into my pocket for the keys and the damned thing got stuck on the stitching of the pocket. Finally I get the keys out and climb in, the old bugger slowly and I mean slowly pulls out.

Sobbing I follow him out, slowly. He stops at the exit, puts on his signal and slowly turns right, the same direction I need to go. Slowly, and I mean slowly, we putt-putt to the traffic light where he will make the same damned turn I need to make, slowly. As he enters the intersection, there are no (as in zero) cars coming the other way, so what does he do? He stops, just to have another look, then slowly, and I mean slowly starts to pull through it, and as he does, another car is approaching rapidly, causing me to have to wait and as it does, the light changes.