I like Bath & Body Works but let’s face it, this is a store for soap, hands/body creams and candles that uses the same 15 scents and renamed them each passing seasons to something else. As cute as the names are, they are always the same smells as the last season but with a new packaging… That being said, I still buy a lot of their stuff.

Last week I was there for one specific search, I needed a small one wick white candle in a clear or white container to go inside an opaque and small vase where it could go easily unnoticed when lit. 15 steps into the store I found exactly what I needed: One Starry Night, which was even more perfect because what I needed it for a Star Wars decorated kitchen table.

I grabbed it and lunged directly to the confusing checkout line. People all line up between 5 rows of products but there’s only one cashier facing row #3 so who will be called next is a mystery, they really need to redesign this area or maybe use the old standard red velvet stanchion lines to encourage shoppers to line up properly.

Anyway, when it was my turn to pay, the girl rang my $10 one wick candle and made a face like someone forced her to add and subtract numbers mentally… it just didn’t compute. Then she lifted the candle so she could look at the barcode and said: “this isn’t on sale” to which I replied: “it’s alright, I was ready to pay full price”. She then left and conferred with another Bath & Body Works professional and made a couple of cute faces to each other, heads were tilted to one side, then to the other and she finally walked back to me to say that the candle was NOT FOR SALE, which I had misunderstood earlier for NOT ON SALE, it was only a sample. So I was a bit confused, I told her I picked it up on one of their shelves mid-store but she insisted that it was only there for people to sample… I did my own head tilt there and questioned: “So… Am i suppose to bring my own matches and try the candle in the store just to see if I like it?” She made another cute face and said: “No, no, no, it’s for people to smell it… they sample the smell”. “So” I said, “this is on the shelves but it’s not for sale, right? That seems a bit silly to have candles for sale amongst some that are just samples, I can see you doing this with hand cream or soap, people want to try those before purchasing… but not for candles”. She then went on to explain that eventually they would be for sale but that for now they were new and just on display and for sampling…

So I left empty-handed, which was perfect as I needed both hands to scratch my head trying to figure out what had just happend…

But as I left I thought to myself that maybe BATH & BODY WORKS & BRAIN TURNED OFF might be a better name for the store.

13 years ago, exactly in May 2006, I started this blog so I could write about all things that I dislike in life… I had a top 100 item list and each post were relating to one of those items… Nothing earth shattering, but very cathartic for my soul. I never got physically violent in my stories, but it felt good to bitch about it in an open forum. It was also fun to see how many people shared my dislikes…

In the Summer of 2013, my blog was hacked and used to send hundreds of thousands of spam emails, the host stopped my account and then after much trials and tribulations, all the content was wiped out and I lost everything… it was a big blow, but I decided then to use this space to show some of my photographs, some stories about traveling, etc… then I stopped using it again, wrongly choosing Instagram as a main social media… Today I’m no longer loving Instagram with their stupid rules and random algorithm…

So, lately, I’ve been feeling the need to share on here again, a few recent incidents that have made the few hair on my head rise and make my eyebrows take that angry position all over again on a more permanent basis… perfect time to start writing again I thought…

Today I’d like to talk about a huge pet peeve, which is: shoppers waiting in line for minutes over minutes to cash out and then don’t have their wallet at the ready when the cashier announces the amount to pay… THAT drives me crazy, and it happens all the time… First looking for the purse, then fishing for the wallet, then trying to find whatever card they need or looks for the exact change by going through all the coins they have in the change purse they also carry… As a cashier, I find nothing more insulting than someone throwing coins on the counter as they try to count that $3.25… One toonie, clink on the counter, two quarters, clink clink on the counter, here’s another quarter, clink on the counter, meanwhile the cashier is looking down the line at all the eyes on him/her, a nickel, clink on the counter, a fistful of dimes, cli-cli-cli-clic-clink of the counter… then defying type looks at the cashier to now pick up and count all that change… puts the wallet away, but wait, there’s $0.15 missing… Are you sure??? Yes I’m sure!!! Then flicks three more nickels on the counters and slaps that wallet shut…

There you go, the new rightful owner of a Venti dark roast… Bravo.. and thanks for the attitude… it will serve you well in life. Loser.

Myself, I go to Starbucks every morning, I use the app on my phone, always easy, fast, reliable. The baristas at the 3 different Starbucks I frequent know me… they’ll know it will be very quick, not many words will be exchange, usually polite acknowledgements, and I’ll be out of their faces before they know it. Yesterday, the lady in front of me ordered her drink and breakfast sandwhich… Her wallet in hand, at the ready… loved it… Then the barista told her the amount to pay and it went south fast… She opened the wallet, took a stack an inch deep of different cards and started going through them like when we were kids with our hockey cards, flicking fast from one to the next…. The one she wanted wasn’t there, drops that stack, start looking into another section, more cards, flick, flick, flick… I’m seeing the colours of all the different rewards cards known to man, but not the famous gold Starbucks card, nor a debit or credit card… Ok… moving on to yet another section of that wallet, which by the looks of it should have its own postal code as it took so much real estate in that purse… Ok.. here we got… I see the Visa logo on the top of that new stacks, we’ve hit jackpot… flick-flick-flick-fl… BINGO… TD DEBIT CARD… My mouth is starting the salivating process knowing that in less than a minute, I’ll have my Grande Dark Roast No Room in my hands for my first sip of the day… It’s almost here…

Oh no… Now she goes: Sir can I tap? Sir? Can I Tap? Sir? Sir? and then he turns around from getting the sandwich which by the way is now ready and he says yes, that she can tap… It should be an easy end to the story now, but no… the tapping has now commenced… Quick tap on the corner of the pin pad… another quick tap, this time turning the card around… tap… tap… tap… and suddenly a growling noise rises from me and words come out: you need to let the card rest on the pin pad for a little bit longer for it to work… and then the magic finally happened…

So yeah… purchasing… learn it and use it well… the people behind you will appreciate it.