Collecting Katie and Julie, we went out to the backstop in the schoolyard for some batting practice. Both girls acquitted themselves well, which was a fine thing. Katie darned near took part of my body off with a line drive back through the box. I might have been able to defend myself better if I hadn't had two more softballs in my glove. As it was, the ball glanced off the pre-existing bruise on my right forearm and doesn't seem to have done any damage -- although it's hard to tell given the state of the bruise! In any case, this was a good thing to get done before tomorrow's game.
Then it was off to Mariano's to pick up the remaining parts for dinner. This consisted of:
OK, not all of those things were for dinner, but they were the targets of the mission. And off to the checkout line I went.
Now I like the new Mariano's, but some bugs are still being worked out of the process. (Some of them are bugs that Jewel has too, as I'll point out in a moment.)
So the checker rang up the Telera rolls as bulk rolls, which would be fine except that I have not yet found generic bulk rolls at this Mariano's and the bulk rolls are 49 cents each, while the Telera rolls are $2 for five, according to the large sign on the case. Since I had seen them rung up both correctly and incorrectly, I knew what I was looking for and informed the cashier that these were not bulk rolls, they were Telera rolls, which are a different price. He then tried to convince me that I had to buy five of the rolls to get them for $2, which is also not correct. Eventually, another cashier punched in the correct code and I saved my 27 cents.
He put the rolls in the bag and then rang up the big, heavy bottle of milk and went to put it in the same bag.
"No," I said. "You do not bag milk with bread, because if you do, you do not get to eat the bread, which will be crushed by the heavy milk."
(I have never actually been a bagger at a grocery, but I am old enough to know how this is supposed to be done. This is not just a Mariano's problem -- I had to ward off a checker at Jewel who was putting the bread in with the canned goods.)
Finally, he picked up the beer.
"ID," he said.
"Excuse me?"
"ID."
So I am now being carded for buying beer. This is, I suppose, the most complementary thing that has happened to me recently. Fine, ID produced.
And off to home with the groceries.
Where I had a pleasant evening heckling the TV with Gretchen. :)
Now, it is time to go read to Katie from Dragonsinger, which we started last night...