Before you ask, yes, these events did happen in just one day.
6:19 A.M.
A fellow subscriber on a forum devoted to photography detailed how, despite his best efforts, his bank account narrowly missed being robbed by an internet thief. That reminded me of our son’s friend who just last week lost $11,000 when a thief cleaned out his bank account. Another forum subscriber said AI (artificial intelligence) will soon be able to duplicate any person complete with photo I.D., handwriting, and almost all related statistics. His educated view: Thieves and scammers are outwitting the best of security systems.
9:05 A.M.
I walked into a national hardware chain store. The place was a shambles—piles of merchandise, clogged aisles, counters in awkward positions, a confused mass of disorder. A sales clerk says it won’t be over for two more weeks, then with an agonized grin, he adds, “That’s what they told us two weeks ago.”
4:32 P.M.
A check of my email reveals that three messages sent to friends a few days before remain unanswered. That’s not like them. So the big question: Did a spam filter place them in forever darkness? A couple of minutes later I receive yet another partial story teaser from a magazine saying I can read the whole story if I subscribe. The fact that I did subscribe has escaped them. As they suggest, I could call them about the problem, except according to their published phone hours, no one will be answering the phone until Monday—and this is Friday.
6:10 P.M.
The order-taker in a national chain restaurant says they are out of apples that are normally part of a fruit salad that also includes strawberries. I could ask why they don’t buy some apples at a nearby supermarket so they can make good on their menu promise. Instead, I ask if they can just add a few more strawberries to make up for the missing apples. She says, “Uh, probably not.” I ask why not and after a blank stare she says she will ask the cook. He groans, but he gives me the berries.
7:15 P.M.
A store of a regional chain has several thousand square feet of mostly clothing but also some housewares. They just redid that part of the store devoted to bedding, luggage, and kitchen equipment. The merchandise formerly displayed in a bright, airy, and inviting environment is now stacked almost ceiling-high on both sides of narrow and dark aisles that make the entire area look forbidding and foreboding. A clerk says they did it so they could offer more merchandise. My take is that they don’t know the difference between a warehouse and a sales room.
10:36 P.M.
On the internet, I read a post by a customer of a financial advisory service. His daughter had arrived at a national chain hotel to check in, only to discover there’s no employee behind the counter or anywhere else in the hotel. She calls the chain’s hotline to complain. Five hours go by before she plus a dozen others are finally able to check in.
11:05 P.M.
An announcement on the other side of the world amounts to a major tilt in the world’s acceptance of the U.S. dollar—a new and worrisome development to U.S. financial experts. The evening network news, however, makes no mention of that. Instead, it substitutes two human interest stories including a baby giraffe born without spots.
