You know, I try to be a good citizen. I mean we're living in a society where people should treat others with respect or at least treat others as they would like to be treated, right? One of the very small things I try to do comes from experiences I had at one of my first jobs.

In the second job of my life, I was working as a maintenance worker for a grocery store. I really liked the job and what's more, I LOVED my paycheck for which I earned $3.54 an hour! That was twenty-two cents ABOVE minimum wage back then! (Oh god, I just morphed into my father!)

Anyway, one of my tasks in this job was to round up shopping carts from the parking lot. It really wasn't that bad except for the unbearable midwest humidity in 90+ August summer days. But, we entertained ourselves by seeing how many carts we could push in one giant line. I still feel sorry for that one customer whose car we T-boned as she was pulling out of the isle. But anyway, back to my good citizen speech.

Obviously, even today some 20 years later I ALWAYS at least march my cart to the nearest cart corral when I'm done grocery shopping. I mean it's the least I can do for those poor minimum wage ($8.00 an hour) teenagers with summer jobs during today's global warming affected summers (2009 one of the coolest summer's on record).

However, I can never seem to be anywhere near a cart corral.

Maybe I'm wrong, but perhaps, just perhaps the reason that I can never find a cart corral in the parking lot of the grocery store is due to the fact that THEY ARE ALL RIGHT NEXT TO EACH OTHER!



The picture doesn't do it justice, but there are 4 corrals almost TOUCHING EACH OTHER!

Come on!

In previous posts, I have taken several jabs at my brother who lives in Arkansas. It's really not fair on my part to pick such low hanging fruit for my amusement, and again, I resolve to stop it. Just the other day I was talking to him and he was giving updates on my niece and nephew.

They are one of the lucky families in that my sister-in-law is able to stay home with the kids. I'm always hearing how advanced my nephew and niece are for their ages.

So, while I was talking with my brother I said, you know it would be great if everyone once in a while you sent some, you know, pictures and what not? It just seems like today, with all this technology we don't seem to share pictures as much as we could. He said he would and I anxiously awaited some pictures.

Here is the picture I received of my niece, the prodigy...








Did I mention that they live in Arkansas?