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I just tried searching some of the quatrains (the writings) of Nostradamus to see if there was anything prophesized about this period of time. With everything that has been happening here in Southern California lately, I thought we might be heading for the end of the world.
If I’m not mistaken, next week is Halloween. Again, if I’m not mistaken, that means that we are officially in fall. If my memory is correct, during this time of year, the temperatures are usually on the decline not the rise. So why the hell are temperatures rising higher, three weeks into October, then what they were at any time during this past Summer?
As soon as our October turned into July, our old friend, the fire season, decided to pay us a return visit. Not to be outdone by the temperature, within 24 hours, as of this writing, we had four good size blazes working from Fontana to Burbank. As the fires increased in size so did the temperature in some sort of heat race. Thus, making the firefighters’ job more difficult with every hour.
Combine these natural disasters with the ongoing man made ones, the grocery Strike, and the MTA strike, and you have the makings of a human emotional time bomb. One that could go off and manifest itself in any number of unpleasant ways. If you think I’m kidding, just look at the way people are beginning to react to one another. Everybody’s fuse has been lit. Unless some of this madness ends, and ends quickly, we are in for an explosion. If not one big one then for sure a series of small ones.
In the last few days, I have already seen the behavior of people behind the wheel become more aggressive. Aggressive is not to be confused with the usual ineptitude displayed while behind the wheel here in the West San Gabriel Valley. There is a definite difference between not knowing how to drive and driving like you want to kill somebody. Maybe it is the heat, the increased pollution due to the fires, the heavier traffic due to the lack of public transportation, or maybe it’s due to the inconvenience of having to drive out of the way to buy groceries. Most likely it’s a combination of the four.
We haven’t heard much about road rage lately in the news, either the drivers have mellowed or the news media has lost interest. Whichever it is, the mention of road rage has dwindled from an every day occurrence to rarely brought up. But, if there was ever a recipe for road rage, we are definitely in the mix.
There isn’t anything any of us can do about the weather despite what Fritz Coleman, Mark Kriski, and Dallas Rains want us to think. I don’t get why these guys always make it sound like they are personally responsible for every drop of rain that falls and every degree of heat we experience, but they do. They have no more control over the weather than Tom Brokaw has over the news. Their psychosis aside, the weather is, what it is.
And then there are the fires. The ones that aren’t caused by human carelessness are as unpredictable as the ones that are. Nobody knows when lighting or arson will strike. Only Mother Nature and the arsonist know for sure. At last check neither one was talking.
The other factors, the two strikes, are a different story. They are predictable and resolvable. The resolution is never perfectly amicable for both parties, but in the past, they have been resolved. The thing is, until both parties sit down and start talking, nothing gets done and there is no hope of getting anything resolved.
The MTA has had people sitting at the negotiating tables; unfortunately so far they have been the wrong people. They may not be getting anything done but at least they are pretending to get something done. This is what most big companies do. You know, they have a whole lot of meetings where nothing is ever done but move a lot of hot air around and waste time. But for the sake of the media and the public it looks like forward motion is being made, which is at least something.
The grocery unions and storeowners, on the other hand, are not even making the effort to try and fool us. Neither side is negotiating, and, as of this writing, there are no discussions to do so. To me, this is more irritating than being bamboozled into thinking progress is being made. The whole thing seems to be resting on the union leaders shoulders. Why? Because an offer has been made by the storeowners. The union rejected it and here we are. No counter offer, no effort to negotiate, nothing.
Personally, I don’t understand why some people act as though these grocery workers are family and feel so protective of them by not wanting to cross the picket lines. Were these people getting some sort of preferential treatment that I wasn’t? Did they have a crush on a checker or two, fantasizing about a midnight tryst in the frozen food aisle when the store was empty? Whatever their mind set, I just don’t get it.
Is it because they opened their check stand in a timely fashion saving you two minutes standing in line? Or was it because they let you, one time, use a coupon that wasn’t an exact match for what you were buying, saving you a whopping 25 cents? I’m sorry, those things come under the heading of doing your job and keeping the customers satisfied.
What I think this has more to do with is that once this strike is over, and if the checkers still have jobs, is having to face them again if you crossed their picket line. Or it’s the sheer intimidation factor of walking past a group of people holding sticks over their heads who don’t want you to enter the store. Whichever it is, I don’t like the thought of being told where I can shop and where I can’t.
A friend told me that the other day she was going to her local Albertson’s to do her banking. It was one of those grocery stores that have a mini banking office inside. As she was attempting to enter the store one of the picketers started grilling her as to what she was going to be doing in the store. She flat out told him it was none of his business. He and others continued to verbally assault her until she was inside. Some of those verbally assaulting her were those “oh so friendly checkers” that she thought she was helping by not shopping at the store. How quickly they turn on you when you don’t do what they want.
Once she was inside she was so pissed off that she decided to do her shopping while she was there. This was not her intention when she arrived, but after being attacked in front of the store, her days of any sort of respect for the picketers and their bullying tactics flew right out the window.
After hearing this, so did mine. There were no good reasons that I had for protecting the livelihoods of those who, for the moment, are employed by my local Ralph’s. If anything, in review, they had done nothing for me other than what they were hired to do.
In fact, in a previous column I went out of my way to praise a particular checker at Ralph’s, and her response was to call the editor and threaten to sue the paper for me using her name. This, of course, was sheer foolishness on her part. I was saying nothing but nice things about her and in court she wouldn’t have a leg to stand on.
On my wife’s last outing to the same store before the strike, she was being checked out by a manager who is now on the picket line, who left her with a sour feeling. And they hadn’t even begun their campaign of inconvenience on the public yet.
Between my wife and myself I do the majority of the grocery shopping. On this rare occasion, when she did go shopping, she forgot to bring her “You’re Screwed If You Don’t Have It” Card or Ralph’s Club Card as it is better known. The last time she was there, and she didn’t have her card, all she had to do was tell the checker her your phone number and they would enter it in the system and away she went.
On this occasion, when she attempted to give the number to the checker/ manager this was not acceptable. In a curt and condescending tone he told her she had to enter the number in the keypad herself. He finished off by adding, “What, don’t you shop here?” Like he couldn’t imagine that anyone having shopped at Ralph’s would ever shop anywhere else.
After reliving these little memories, as soon as they have something I need that I can’t get elsewhere, I have no good reason not to shop there. As I said last week, I was not going to cross their picket lines. Now, ten days later, they have not even attempted to resolve their differences. What reason do I have to support them when the union is not even trying to help itself or their members. They were never the sole store that I shopped at, they were part of a series of stores who all served particular needs. As easy as it was to remove them from the equation it will be just as easy to re-insert them. Now that I am fully fed up with their lack of movement in resolving their differences with management, I look forward to crossing their picket line with pride. Maybe I will pin a copy of my families last health insurance bill to my chest with a sign that reads “anybody want to help me pay this?”
It’s time they suck it up and do what the majority of us do already, sit down for a long boring meeting, pay their share of their own health insurance, and stop adding to the frustration of an already frustrating time.
The Shrub Speaks: “There was a poll that showed me going up yesterday, not to be on the defensive. Actually I'm in pretty good shape politically, I really am. I didn't mean to sound defensive. But I am. Politicians, by the way, who pay attention to the polls are doomed, trying to chase opinion when what you need to do is lead, set the tone.”
B.D.’s response: You pay attention to the polls, politicians who do are doomed, if one plus one equals two, then you are doomed. Hey, he said it, not me!
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