Something for everyone
I got to work today, bid in on my register, and immediately had three very difficult persons come through my line, bam bam bam, all with purchases totalling between $110 and $300. HOLY CRAP when your very first customer makes you redo her $300 purchase TWICE because she is insufferably stupid, that does not bode well for the rest of your day.
Not only did she dispute the price of every single item, she started critiquing my bagging technique pretty harshly. This amazes me. Hello woman, I am packing your crap into bags for you after folding it to your rather demanding expectations, and you are going to gripe about this? Would you like to bag it? Because I won't stop you. No? DRINK A GLASS OF SHUT UP THEN PLEASE :)
Apparently she wanted our premium "defy the laws of physics!" bags that allow her to fit twenty pairs of plus size jeans and a half dozen winter coats into one small, easy-to-carry-home-on-the-bus size bag.
People. I dunno, man.
Fortunately, halfway through the day I managed to escape into Halloween, so my mood elevated from "lightly homicidal" to "marginally grumpy" by closing time. Then it was a short bus ride, and then I didn't have to wait for an elevator, and by the time I unlocked the door on the first try I was feeling almost industrious. So I decided to do some laundry and make dinner for myself out of one of the new cookbooks I picked up today.
It's kind of a fancypants book, big and thick with glossy pages and phrases like "wonderfully simple" and "simply delicious" and "simply simple simplicity simply" sprinkled generously throughout the text. The title, however, is "Four Ingredient Cookbook," which made me go "ooh, here's a win!" in my head when I decided to buy it. Four ingredients! Any time I want to make something, I go down the list of ingredients and I'm always missing one stupid thing, and half the time it's cream of ______ soup. It's not that I have a particularly ill-stocked pantry, it's just that any can of anything that sits in there for more than four days turns into a can of spaghettios. Any recipe that calls for cream of chicken soup, for example, should not be attempted unless it can be improved by spaghettios. I could even put the spaghettios in a blender but I don't know if cream of spaghettios would necessarily improve things very much. But only four ingredients? I might stand a chance here.
I was mostly mistaken on the "standing a chance" bit, which was not unexpected. I am not, for example, prepared to even begin dealing with "Pheasant cooked in port with mushrooms" or "Roast cod wrapped in prosciutto with vine tomatoes." Sea Bass in a Salt Crust? Mussel Risotto? I am going to eat spaghettios forever, aren't I?
I tried to take refuge in the pasta and rice section, the logic being that I knew I'd have at least 25% of the ingredients. This of course got a little stumped in the face of things like "Rosemary risotto with borlotti beans" but I did manage to make the spaghetti with lemon. That was such a relief. I need a whole book of spaghettis with lemons. I have spaghetti, I have lemons, I have olive oil, I have garlic. I can DO this thing.
I'm pretty terrified of that Japanese cookbook I bought, though. I haven't even opened it yet. If this four ingredient business wound up being so snooty, what in God's name am I going to find in there?
Not only did she dispute the price of every single item, she started critiquing my bagging technique pretty harshly. This amazes me. Hello woman, I am packing your crap into bags for you after folding it to your rather demanding expectations, and you are going to gripe about this? Would you like to bag it? Because I won't stop you. No? DRINK A GLASS OF SHUT UP THEN PLEASE :)
Apparently she wanted our premium "defy the laws of physics!" bags that allow her to fit twenty pairs of plus size jeans and a half dozen winter coats into one small, easy-to-carry-home-on-the-bus size bag.
People. I dunno, man.
Fortunately, halfway through the day I managed to escape into Halloween, so my mood elevated from "lightly homicidal" to "marginally grumpy" by closing time. Then it was a short bus ride, and then I didn't have to wait for an elevator, and by the time I unlocked the door on the first try I was feeling almost industrious. So I decided to do some laundry and make dinner for myself out of one of the new cookbooks I picked up today.
It's kind of a fancypants book, big and thick with glossy pages and phrases like "wonderfully simple" and "simply delicious" and "simply simple simplicity simply" sprinkled generously throughout the text. The title, however, is "Four Ingredient Cookbook," which made me go "ooh, here's a win!" in my head when I decided to buy it. Four ingredients! Any time I want to make something, I go down the list of ingredients and I'm always missing one stupid thing, and half the time it's cream of ______ soup. It's not that I have a particularly ill-stocked pantry, it's just that any can of anything that sits in there for more than four days turns into a can of spaghettios. Any recipe that calls for cream of chicken soup, for example, should not be attempted unless it can be improved by spaghettios. I could even put the spaghettios in a blender but I don't know if cream of spaghettios would necessarily improve things very much. But only four ingredients? I might stand a chance here.
I was mostly mistaken on the "standing a chance" bit, which was not unexpected. I am not, for example, prepared to even begin dealing with "Pheasant cooked in port with mushrooms" or "Roast cod wrapped in prosciutto with vine tomatoes." Sea Bass in a Salt Crust? Mussel Risotto? I am going to eat spaghettios forever, aren't I?
I tried to take refuge in the pasta and rice section, the logic being that I knew I'd have at least 25% of the ingredients. This of course got a little stumped in the face of things like "Rosemary risotto with borlotti beans" but I did manage to make the spaghetti with lemon. That was such a relief. I need a whole book of spaghettis with lemons. I have spaghetti, I have lemons, I have olive oil, I have garlic. I can DO this thing.
I'm pretty terrified of that Japanese cookbook I bought, though. I haven't even opened it yet. If this four ingredient business wound up being so snooty, what in God's name am I going to find in there?
posted by Betsi at 11:05 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home