Slow growth

Even in the middle of persephone Days, plants will grow. They just grow slower. When I put my pepper plants indoors for the winter, some of them had flowers. Four weeks after I brought them in some of them have set fruit. What I can’t figure out is how they got pollinated. There are no bees or flies in my house and there is no breeze either.

Peppers of a yet to be determined kind.

Overtime

I haven’t been working a lot of overtime at Wally World, but I may have to start. I had to replace the hot water heater which put a serious crimp in my emergency fund. I need a normal weekend to make up for last week. Next week, I will come in on one of my days off.

It is hard to get good help to work overnights. Right now we are at the warm bodies wanted, cold ones considered level of desperation. We had four suspects hired last month and one of them has already disappeared. No one is going to miss that cow. She was slow and stupid. Unfortunately this puts us five bodies down, so overtime will be authorized but not mandated.

New Year’s surprises

I just found out this blog has been up for three years. I wish I had made more progress, but I have kept this blog up longer than the average blog.

I went to buy lunch at work. I wanted to see if there was a noticeable difference in the price due to the decrease in the sales tax on groceries. I noticed the price was significantly higher. When I checked the receipt from another associate, I noticed Wally World was charging both the new rate of 7% and the old rate of 9.5%. I did not purchase my item. The team leads were still trying to figure it out when I came back from lunch. I hope someone figured out how to fix that glitch before the store opened.

Food inflation takes a breather

The after Christmas sale is on. Not only is Christmas candy on sale, but turkeys and hams are on rollback as well. Even better in Kansas, Sunday the sales tax on groceries goes down from 6.65% to 4.65%. Of course most places that sell food are in towns that add 3% to that. Hopefully the legislature and the governor can come to an agreement to abolish the state sales tax on groceries this year. Of all the taxes this one has to be the most annoying.

Cold snap busted

With a high of over 40, the recent cold snap is over. Most of the snow will be gone by tomorrow. At least it melted slowly, which is kind of important when you live on a dirt road.

I normally have Tuesday night off, but because of the holiday I have to go in tonight. It will be nice to have roads dry enough to avoid mud yet still moist enough to keep the dust down.

Taming the beast

I had to go to Wally World in Coffeyville to get a new phone. When I leave work at Indy, there is no one in electronics to unlock the cabinet with the cell phones. I almost got out of Walmart with the phone when the smell of Buffalo Wings got the best of me.

I got as far as the local pizza place to get my wing fix. This chain is known for its 29 inch square pizza known as The Beast. If you and a partner can finish it in 45 minutes, the pizza is free and you get 50 dollars. I had never seen anyone attempt it until I walked in. While waiting for the wings, the manager provided running commentary as these two high school kids did their best to tame The Beast. They got almost three quarters done before they quit right before time expired. The Beast’s record improves to 23-2, 5-0 in Coffeyville.

Fleas Love Your Dog

At Wally World the canned music is a constant even on overnights. The last two nights have had Jose Feliciano’s “Feliz Navidad”. One of my former coworkers at the bottled water company told us about his sister-in-law who thought he was singing “Fleas Love Your Dog”. Yes she was blonde. I thought he might be joking, but his brother-in-law who also worked there confirmed the story. Twenty-five years later Fleas Love Your Dog is still an earworm that arrives every Thanksgiving and doesn’t leave until after New Year’s Day.