Three Rip Van Winkle moments in one afternoon.
First: I've been buying raw milk (two or three half gallons per week) at the same small mom and pop grocer in town for fifteen years or more. Generally speaking, the milk is great, and lasts at least as long as advertised on the expiration date, but on rare occasions it sours far short of the advertised date, and when I told them about that happening back 12 years ago or so, they said next time bring them back with the receipt, and we'll replace them. I was impressed with that, and on the rare occasions when that happened, I would do just that.
This week was one such occasion. I bought three half gallons on the 4th with August 12th expiration dates, and packed them in a cooler with ice for the ride home as usual. By Saturday the 6th, the remaining two were spoiled past being drinkable. So I found the receipt and put it in my wallet so I will have it on my next trip out there, which was today.
I walk in with the two half gallons and the customer service desk is right there. There was a woman whom I'd never before seen in the store there who asked me what the problem was. I told her, expecting to be instructed to go back and get two more, but instead she said that the store no longer takes milk back for any reason. I had an argument with her, but to no avail, and when I asked to speak to her manager, she said I was talking to the manager (a woman I'd never seen in the store in the fifteen years I'd been coming every week).
Second: On the way home, it occurred to me that it had been a while since I'd taken advantage of McDonald's Breakfast Anytime policy, and the idea of a Sausage McMuffin with Egg was sounding really good to me just then. So I pulled into the McDonald's only to see a line of cars wrapped all the way around. Okay, so I park and walk in.
I go to the cashier counter and no one is there. Great! No line. What luck. But I wait and wait and wait, and don't see a cashier anywhere. I look to the left and see people busy at the drive through window, but they don't seem to care that there's a dining-in customer by the counter. Eventually, a surly black woman tells me that if I want to order, I have to use the kiosk. Okay, this isn't the airport, so what's a kiosk doing at a McDonald's? I turn around and look behind me to see a row of kiosks.
Third: I go over and take a minute to figure out how the thing works. I then look for the item I want, a Sausage McMuffin with Egg. No luck. I must be looking in the wrong place, or I need to flip to the next page, but that was a dead end. It wasn't there. I called to the surly black woman to tell her I don't see what I'm looking for. She asks what it is, and I tell her. "Oh," she says, "We don't have Breakfast Anytime anymore at McDonald's"
Not being in the mood for lunch, I turn and walk out.
And that was my Rip Van Winkle day.
