Something’s not right here

I’ll be going along going along and then every once in a while I get this sense; the world has lost its goddamn mind.

To wit. I ordered some Tickled Pink Pickles (delicious, you ought to try them) from Walmart, way back in April. I was to pick them up at a local store and after being notified they were ready, I got a second notice that they were out of stock. Fine. Weeks passed and I forgot about the pickles.

Until yesterday, when I received a notice from Walmart that my order was in. Stranger yet, 21 minutes later I received a second notice thanking me for picking up my order.

Not me. Not my pickles.

It took too much of my time to find the number for Walmart Customer Service (thank you google) and then to explain to the person on the other end of the line the intricacies of this situation. The four month lag between order and delivery, the impossibility that it was actually I who picked up the pickles (‘They just want them back’ she said). It really shouldn’t be this hard.

And then last night an email from the person I share a storage unit with, thanking me for paying my rent but also reminding me that our rent had risen again and thus I owed her another five dollars (this is a loosey goosey arrangement). Well, as this same scenario had happened a few months ago and rent hikes are per the calendar year, I inquired further. She sent along a copy of the rent notice showing that the price for the unit had risen from $176 to $179 a month. Huh? I messaged her back saying ‘So it went up $3 and you raised mine $5?’. Yes, she responded. And then wrote a long-assed explanation as to how she had measured the space inside and discovered that I had 1 sq ft more than she did. And so, just to make things right, she had, without discussion, been arbitrarily hiking my rent while also blaming the landlord: ‘This kind of sucks the rent is going up. Your share will be 85. Sorry about this but I have no control.’ Uh, yeah.

Oh, the humanity.

Sometimes it’s funny. Other times a little bit funny but sad too. But then it can just be sad, like when I open the New York Times and read stories such as this: TRUMP ADMINISTRATION UNVEILS ITS PLAN TO RELAX CAR POLLUTION RULES. That can’t be right, can it?

It’s not. And it would be easy to say we have no control and/or that it’s too hard to fight back. But we must. We share this planet and if we are complacent, we are complicit.

Never ever be afraid to stand up for what’s right even if it’s a small thing (pickles). Deciding not to sweat the seemingly minor transgressions can be a slippery slope. Lately I’ve noticed that when something is priced at, say, 1.99, the merchant automatically keeps the penny. It may seem like nothing but…it’s not. A penny is a something and if I want to give it to someone, that’s my choice. But they shouldn’t automatically assume that it is theirs. Speak up, speak out, and don’t be afraid to ask for and sometimes even demand change–double entendre intended.

Those pennies add up.