You Really Should Write Something

Doomscrolling is no way to live.

I admit I’m doing far too much doom scrolling again. I thought I had kicked the habit, but here I am again. Staying in bed in the morning, when I should be springing into action and working on art or a new panda ‘toon, or really, anything besides just endlessly scrolling.

I mean…it’s September! It’s back to school time, even though I haven’t been in school for decades. It’s also the time when the folks at The MacArthur Foundation call people up and tell them, “Not only are you a jeenious, you are a jeenious with a bunch a money!!!!”

I mean…this COULD be the year that Panda Satire is recognized by those nice people that hand out prestige and big bags of money.

In the attempt to stop doom scrolling, over my next couple of posts, I’m going to share some good things that are happening or have happened or are going to happen:

A good thing at the grocery store

Since the beginning of the pandemic, I’ve gotten in the habit of mostly only going to the grocery store once a week. On my previous trip to the store, before the most recent one, I bought some bleach. I don’t use a lot. I use it to clean out my washing machine once a month, per the manufacturer’s instructions. I don’t use much, so a container will last a year or more. So, the container was on the bottom rack of the small grocery cart that I like to use. and because I was thinking about other things, I forgot to put it in my car when I put my groceries in.

Because I was thinking about other things, I didn’t notice I’d forgotten it for a few days. “Oh crap” I thought. Well, there’s $6 down the drain. I mean, it’s not like I misplaced my MacArthur Grant, but when you haven’t gotten a big honking grant, $6 matters.

So when I went to the store this week, I bought another gallon of bleach. I mentioned that I must have left the bleach I got LAST week on the cart, to the checker, not that I thought that she monitors my purchases from week to week, but in just that self deprecating way of saying, “I am an idiot and not a jeenious and it’s no WONDER the MacArthur folks have not given me big bags of money, since I am obviously not a jeenious…”

I really had no ulterior motive (really), but then she says, “Let me check…” and she gets on the phone to the PLIA (PayLess Intelligence Agency), asks a couple questions, and hangs up. It turns out that people do this all the time, and sometimes people turn stuff in they found, and sometimes when they go collect the carts they find stuff and write it down in a book, with the date, before putting things back on the shelves.

Since I knew what day I had last been there (since I tend to go on the same day each week) she could ask about that day and turns out someone DID find a gallon of bleach so I didn’t have to pay for the one I got this week. Bonus!

I also got the bonus of having a grocery store that cares enough about their customers to keep a list of forgotten items and replace them for no additional charge if you remember that you forgot something. I mean, they could be the kind of place that just puts those things back on the shelf and takes it as a boost to their profit margin. The checkers are generally friendly, and many of them have worked there for years, so it must be a pretty good place to work. I ran into one of the women that used to work there, but had retired. I was glad to see her and told her I missed seeing her there, but was glad she could retire. I have a hard time imagining a job where I had to be on my feet all day.

In the race to buy everything on line, or use the self checkout option at the store, I prefer my friendly, familiar checker, who also bakes bread and is willing to chat with people in line.

So, that’s my positive story for the day, which will hopefully distract me from doom scrolling or waiting by the phone while the MacArthur people don’t call.

I will try not to wait so long before writing again. And if I haven’t said it lately, thanks for coming to read my stuff, and thanks to those that are able to support what I do with paid subscriptions. I really am glad that all of you are here. Because hey! At least we are not doom scrolling right this minute and we haven’t even thought about You Know Who!

See ya at the water cooler!