Here I go again! Please don’t read this entry if you are looking for mystery book fare. This is yet another one of my rants!

Whatever happened to customer service?!? Is there anyone out there who remembers the time when you could actually “order” something from a department or grocery store? I do!

It used to be that when you went to … say … Walmart, Walgreen’s, Michael’s, ETC, and they didn’t have a product that they normally carry, you could speak to the person in charge of that area and they would special order it for you. They would actually call you when it arrived at the store.

Those days (I’m afraid!) are long gone. When you finally track down the person in charge of a given department, you are invariably told “They send us what they want.” and that there is no special ordering of any kind. Sometimes you get a super nice department manager who will, however, take your name and phone number and say that he/she will call you the next time the store has that particular product. The super nice department manager will then pull a piece of scrap paper out of his/her pocket and take down all of the necessary information… so that he/she can call you just as soon as the particular product is sent by “THEM“…

Don’t hold your breath!

I don’t like to recall the “good, old days”… You know, when we, as children had to walk five miles through snow storms just so that we could get to school (à la Little House on the Prairie!) for our daily 3 Rs, but I just have to say one last thing>>>

I do miss the “good, old days”!

I hope that you all are having a great three-day weekend!

Happy Valentine’s to all of you, and enjoy President’s Day, too!

(PS>>> My husband is teaching me how to install pictures in my entries. Can you tell?)

Let me preface this entry by saying that I have lived in several states, and countries. My father was a career Air Force man, so we moved a lot. I was born in Florida, although I spent the first year and a half of my life in Cuba. I have also lived in Chile, Spain, and Panama. The states I have lived in are various… Virginia, Maryland, Nebraska, Iowa, Colorado, Florida, Connecticut, and for the last 17 years, Texas.

Perhaps I never noticed the subject of this entry, which bothers me so much in any of the other places I have lived because I wasn’t paying attention. OR, perhaps I wore rose-colored glasses and/or blinders throughout my life. Feel free to write and let me know that this actually is a common-place “activity” in other states. I have to say, however, that I certainly hope it isn’t!

I simply cannot stand to see men spit! I have never been aware of this good-grief-awful habit in any of the other place I have lived or visited. What is it about Texas that makes grown men think that it is all right to simply lean over and spit in public?!?!? Even in the days of chewing tobacco, didn’t the men use spittoons? And, really since all of these men aren’t doing the tobacco-in-their-lip-thing, just who do they think they are? Cowboys out on the range, driving their cattle to Kansas?

My grandfather and uncle were true cowboys… I mean real cowboys. Not the type of city slickers who don their cowboy boots, Stetson hats, and big belt buckles, while driving around in their big gas-guzzling trucks, never having seen a horse up close. My uncle owned a livestock auction barn in Colorado many years ago, and my grandfather was a rancher of cattle and horses. My mother’s family actually used to move cattle from one plot of land to the other… on horseback. So, I think that I can safely say they were a “cowboy” family. And, I NEVER saw any of them spit!

What is it about Texas? Or am I simply becoming more intolerant as I grow older? What is it that makes these grown men think that it’s acceptable to be so crude in public? Or am I simply expecting too much?

*****Disclaimer::: Don’t get me wrong, a very small percentage of men here in Texas have this uncontrollable habit!****