It’s a Brave New World and sometimes I think I’m too old to live in it!

It’s a Brave New World and sometimes I think I’m too old to live in it! Why you ask? Well let me tell you a story.

This past weekend I had the opportunity to visit our local shopping mall. The Valley Plaza Mall. The Valley Plaza or the Mall as I will refer to it from here on out is pretty big, about 1,100,000 square feet with over 140 stores, the anchor stores being Sears, Macy’s, J.C. Penney's and Target.

I'm not a big fan of the Mall, I can count on one hand the number of times I've been there in the past few years to do actual shopping. I do love a restaurant there named Que Pasa and I go there often to eat because they have the best street tacos! You get one of each, Pork Carnitas, Carne Asada, and Chicken plus a bit of guacamole and green salsa. The price is reasonable and I like that it doesn't come with rice and beans as I've never cared for rice and beans that much anyway, just not worth the carbs.

Photo Credit - Que Pasa

But my sister Lisa was looking for a dress for a wedding. She'll be in the bridal party so she needed something formal. We hit the bridal stores but decided to try J.C. Penney's and Macy's as well. Penney's and Macy's are pretty close to each other but Que Pasa is way over on the other side of the Mall and we decided to just walk over there and get some exercise in as an excuse to eat more carbs and calories!

A LOT has changed at the Mall from when I used to go there all the time before I got married and when my kids were smaller. It's a circus now! I could not believe how stressful a trip to the Mall was.

We both could not believe the atmosphere. The mall now caters heavily to youth and children. I don't know how people have money to spend inside the actual stores considering all the attractions in the mall area itself. They had a train ride.

Stationary rides...

And they even had this sling shot ride where parents and kids were lined up for miles so their kids could ride a contraption similar to this. I can only imagine how much it cost to ride this! And the kids in the sling riding it, they all look bored and entitled to me, but maybe that's because I'm old?

And there were several of these placed strategically near all the other attractions.

So kids are running around, whining, yelling, chasing each other. Parents are oblivious as they are used to the noise and chaos of children. Dad's are supposed to be watching the kids, but you can see the dad's sitting staring at their phones and the mom's in the stores shopping. Mean while, Lisa and I are dodging kids to keep from being run over!

When we did venture into a store the music blaring was enough to strike us deaf! Outside of Macy's they even had a Dee-Jay! A Dee-Jay blaring out hip-hop music!!You couldn't hear yourself think, let alone be able to talk to each other. Kids running in and out, under clothing racks and climbing on chairs. It was ridiculous!

Finding someone that works in a store to help you was a challenge as well. No one wears "work appropriate clothing" anymore. I worked at Montgomery Wards all through college and men were required to wear a shirt and tie and women to wear a skirt, dress or dress slacks. We all work name tags, it was easy to distinguish who worked there.

Finally we found a boy working there that looked like he was a homeless teenager on his way to the beach. he was dirty and disheveled, long hair greasy. He was wearing a super-faded Hawaiian shirt and long shorts that were riding low, almost showing his butt crack and flip flops. Now granted this was at a store named Forever 21 and Lisa and I are older even than Forever 50...but still! I may make some enemies here, but there just doesn't seem to be much pride in youth today in themselves or their jobs.

Oh...for instance, if you will allow me to rant here, there is a Jack in the Box commercial that really irritates me. Jack and his lovely wife are at the movie theater and they order popcorn and sodas and the total comes to $22.50. Jack freaks out and his wife is suitably embarrassed and this is the look on the face of the young man serving them. You can see that he just doesn't give a damn! He's bored and doesn't care about selling himself, the theater or their food. And I see the look on the faces of employees all the time, at stores, restaurants, doctors offices, there is no pride in the job itself.

I know you may not agree with me, but I would love to go back to the days when stores had that quiet, sappy elevator music playing softly in the background, and stores had pleasant polite employees that would come up to ask if you needed help. Cashiers that spoke to you instead of to each other and a mall was for shopping, not an amusement park!

Ok, so there I am done ranting, thanks for listening (or reading).  I would like to believe that it's just my age, but I honestly don't think so. Have you had similar experiences? Do you go to your local mall often? Do you find that customer service has deteriorated and that it's almost non-existent? Or do you think I'm just a grumpy older lady?


 

Can you hear me now? Hello? Hello?

Cell Phones, we all have them and they come in many shapes, sizes and offer many different conveniences.
We have Smart Phones now, Android Phones, Texting Phones, IPhones and Blackberries.
Phones can now lead the way with GPS applications so you can find your way anywhere. You can find restaurants, you can buy tickets to movies and concerts with your phone. You can calculate a tip, take a photo, send a photo, check your email, tweet someone, keep track of your kids. You can vote for the next American Idol, you can donate money to Haiti or Chile. You can play games, watch videos, surf the web. You can update your status on FaceBook or MySpace or any of the other popular social networking sites. You can use your phone in place of a cigarette lighter in concerts or as a very dim flashlight to guide you down a dark hallway at night or to light your car door so you know where the key goes.

You can do all those things and more with cell phones, but you know what you can't do? You can't make a decent phone call! There's no reception, you can't drive through an almond orchard without dropping the call. You can't make a call on a cloudy day because for some reason when it's overcast you can't get any reception.

I wish they had just left a cell phone a cell phone and put all their imagination and money and time into building a better phone....for phone CALLS.

I'm just saying......................

Where have all the Manners gone?

Have you noticed lately that people aren't as polite as they used to be?

Yesterday I was driving behind a long line of cars that were proceeding at an excruciatingly slow pace. The reason was that ahead of us were three truck-tractors hauling a wide load with pilot cars before and after with lights flashing.

So I took my time, happily listening to the Bob and Tom Show and not stressing out at all. But traffic behind and in front of me was just dodging in and out between all the other cars with people trying to get just one more car ahead. I mean why? Even if you get to the front of the line you have to wait behind those big truck...so why? Why endanger your life and more importantly mine?

Then...after those huge trucks pulled over to let traffic pass, right before the on-ramp to Highway 99 I turned on my right signal to let people know that I wanted to merge into the right line so I could enter the freeway. There was this guy wearing an Osha Orange jacket in a big blue truck and he would not let me merge. He sped up. I had to slow down and inconvenience the line of cars behind me so that the next person could let me in!
Would it truly have killed that guy to let me merge? Does one more car in front of you really make that much difference in your life? And if so...Why?

So when I moved in behind that truck, I mouthed "Big Fat Jerk without thinking and then I held my breath hoping he wouldn't slam on his brakes and get out of his truck and come back to my car and shoot me. Ok, well maybe that's a little far-fetched but those things do happen...all the time sometimes!

Then ...to make matters worse. After work I stopped at an AM/PM to gas up my car. It was super busy but I saw that if I drove clear to the other side of the pumps there was a space  right in the middle of two other cars. So I drove around and was just making the turn to pull in debating if I should try the parallel parking thing or just pull in when Slam, Bam...this big huge man in a beat up old pickup cuts me right off and pulls into the spot. 


I remember my fear of being shot from the morning and I manage not to mouth, Big Fat Jerk at him. So I find an empty pump right on the other side of this guy and while I'm standing there pumping gas he looks at me and tries to be the nice guy by saying, "Kinda cold tonight isn't it?" "Really? Really you big fat jerk...now you wanna be nice?" Ok, so I didn't say that.  I just turned around and pretended I didn't hear him and we both finished and each went our own way.


But I'm still bothered; even today, a day later, that people are so rude and only worry about themselves. Why has this become a "ME" society? I try to perform random acts of kindness. I let people cut in front of me all the time. I stop and let people pull out of parking lots and I always flash truck drivers so they know they can pull into my lane. (And I don't mean flash in the flashy-flash term...I mean I flash my lights on and off at them).

Have you experienced the same things? Where have all the manners gone? (And don't even get me started on people that just throw their trash anywhere.) Ok, there...I've ranted. Thanks for listening and I promise not to be so negative in my next post.