Birthdays and Calculators

Okay, so two things today. The first is that Round 2 of Birthday Train on Sunday went smashingly well! Aside from the weather, it was very enjoyable. We had to nix the volleyball game due to the drizzly rain, but everything else went well. We stopped after church and picked up a bought and pre-decorated cake from Walmart. Yes, I said I bought the cake and didn't even order a special one!! We came home, warmed the pre-cooked butt in the oven for a couple hours, got out the pre-made potato salad and slaw and dumped some pre-cooked beans in a pot on the stove. Ahhhhhhhh, yes, it was great. No stress, no worries. We had a nice but not quite oversized group. Family and a couple little friends. This is what birthdays should be about! I just hope Hopie enjoyed it too. She and her little friend and I went to a "birhtday" movie Saturday night and after being completely disgusted by the first 10 mins of H2- I didn't realize it was Rob Zombie- we caught most of The Time Travelor's Wife which was good except the ending stank!

And the second thing involves a little math. An item at a local convienience/grocery store which will remain nameless, was on sale for 5 for $5. Of course, as I was leaving, I noticed that each item had wrung up $1.49. When I brought this to the cashier's attention, he attempted to fix it at which point he said, "You were actually better off the other way. This is going to cost you more." So with a puzzled look on my face, I said, "Noooooo, 5 x $1.49 = $7.45. There is no way that's better than $5!" So the guy points to the computer screen and tells me that that is what he had to go by since the computer said so. We went round and round with these same issues several times when I irritatedly asked for a new cashier to shed some light on the subject. Fortunately, she realized the problem so at least all hope was not loss. Unfortunately, to my frustration , she was unable to fix it. She finally tossed $2.50 my way and called it good, which was still not right but if they truly felt that that computer was smarter than they were, then they needed the 18 cents worse than I did! Did you know that kids are allowed to use calculators at all times in Math class! It's just going to get worse!