Category Archives: Hello Calgary

Theory of Behavioural Economics and How It Applies To Shopping Carts

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We are having a Winter Storm and Snow Event in Calgary today; there is so much snow and the roads are treacherous, so my class today was cancelled. I am enjoying the novelty of having a forced day at home; my husband even took the kids to school as the van was stuck in the garage. It’s kind of nice to have to slow down and just putter around, but it will be even nicer to get back to regular programming, as it were.

Yesterday I went to Superstore for groceries – Wednesdays are my Designated Superstore Days – and it appeared that the entire quadrant of the city was there, stocking up before the Big Storm. It was a tiny taste of what must happen when there is a big East Coast storm or a hurricane; I couldn’t believe the craziness at 11:00 in the morning on a Wednesday.

As I laboriously shoved my heavy cart through the snowy parking lot, putting all my weight into it with my torso nearly parallel to the ground, I recalled a conversation I had with Jake during the Christmas break. He had accompanied me to Superstore, a rare occurrence, and he wondered, in passing and in a very casual, making-conversation kind of way, why we had to put a loonie in to get a cart.

I’m sure that Jake didn’t realize that his casual musing would lead to a Can Opened Worms Everywhere situation, but that was the result. I told him that if people are forced to make a returnable deposit on something, then they will behave in a completely different manner than if there is no natural consequence to their actions, see also: bottle depots. Without an economic incentive, people rarely behave in a way that benefits society; I was this close to describing the Invisible Hand And How It Can Be Applied To Shopping Carts, but one only needs to spend thirty seconds in a Wal-Mart parking lot to examine this phenomenon.

Or Costco. Costco! The Costco parking lot is constantly the Land Of The Lost Carts, but a few weeks ago I was startled to see this:

What is the appropriate punishment for this crime? I mean, the least that could have been done was to do what every other lazy Costco shopper does when eschewing common courtesy and morality and shove it to the side, rather than blocking an entire coveted parking spot. I took the cart myself and at the end of my shopping, lovingly returned it to its corral, thinking you’re home now with your family, in a not at all unbalanced way.

A friend of mine gently pointed out that possibly that cart was left there for my use by a postpartum-y mama with other crying children in the car. Another friend said that perhaps there was an emergency or illness. Certainly, those things could be true. I am not a monster. I realize that there are extenuating circumstances that could result in a cart not returned to a corral; when I am at the Co-Op I always offer to return or take a cart when I see an elderly person leaving it to the side, and I even keep the passive-aggressive tone out of my voice. Here, let me take that for you. I offer to help new mothers and I take carts back myself, not – obviously – for the glory, but for my own Parking Lot Feng Shui.

It certainly can be the case that it is sometimes not physically or emotionally possible to return the cart, even if the person got the full cart that far, and pushing an empty cart is much easier, particularly, in this case, when there is a perfectly clear and dry parking lot. So, my compassionate and empathetic friends may be right.

However, I don’t think so. I think that this cart is just the most egregious example of a terrible epidemic of laziness and thoughtlessness, given that the entire parking lot was full of errant carts. In fact, I think that there were more carts outside of the corrals than in them, and there are, I should point out, corrals conveniently located in nearly every section of the parking lot. True, there may be a small number of people who are just unable, but those people are not even a patch on the giant quilt of non-returners.

I weep for humanity.

Interestingly, this has even been studied by anthropologists, which makes me feel better about my own weird obsession. My friend Simona (HI SIMONA) sent me this article, and what stands out is this quote:

I don’t return my carts on principle. Although I also don’t block parking spaces – I put them on islands and curbs. My assumption is that if the cart wrangler could get a better job, he would. So I’m doing my part to keep him gainfully employed.

This sentiment is gross. It reminds me of people who throw garbage on the floor of a theatre so that the janitors have a job to do, or people who make giant messes of sweater displays so that the salesgirls won’t be bored on the job. Why don’t we all just pee on the floor of public bathrooms so that the cleaner can keep busy, or throw trash out the window so convicts will be able to pick it up on their work-release programs? LET’S KEEP A LITTLE HUMANITY, HERE, PEOPLE. The cart wranglers STILL HAVE TO TAKE THE CARTS FROM THE CORRAL INTO THE STORE AND THAT IS NO SMALL JOB LET’S NOT MAKE IT HARDER ON THEM.

It reminds me of when I was a teenager and I had a job at Pizza Hut. The two managers, I can see them still: Tim, with his sandy, curly blond hair and tiny stature, and Dave, with his slicked-back black hair and sweat stains on his shirt. Both enjoyed a general asshole demeanor. Neither of them could have possibly been older than 28, but they were both getting Managerial Bonuses for running the Pizza Hut with minimum staff, so every weekend was a complete gong show that would result in customers reaming out the cashiers (me) for their pizza taking too long or their table not being cleared quickly enough. Every single weekend we would deal with complaints that sometimes made me cry with their vitriol – and yet, we were always short-staffed. One might say that the short-staffing meant that the teenage staff was gainfully employed, but it was awful nonetheless. Tim and Dave, you were terrible.

But this brings me to a question: why doesn’t Costco retrofit their carts to be coin-operated? You can bet, with the certainty of Adam Smith, that the carts would be returned and peace would return to the parking lot.

Well, it’s January

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“Well, it’s January.” This seems to be my answer to everything lately, from the wildly-fluctuating weather to my own general idiocy. Well, idiocy may be a strong term for “writing down the dog’s veterinary appointment on the wrong day” but here we are. I had my entire morning planned around Barkley’s appointment. I had called a few weeks ago, specified the necessity of a Thursday morning appointment, and yesterday, when I bundled myself up and hauled us both over to the clinic, discovered that the appointment was for the next Thursday. Sadly, that time was not going to work for me so now today at 3:30 is my new time; an inferior time, if I do say so myself. Friday afternoon is no time for an appointment. Friday afternoon is no time for anything except collapsing in exhaustion from the week’s travails. However, I could see no real alternative, given my schedule over the next few weeks. No sooner than I had arranged this with the receptionist and arrived back home, I received a phone call from the vet clinic, reminding me of my appointment tomorrow at 3:30. But I just SAW you twenty minutes ago to arrange this is something I did not say to the young receptionist, instead circling “Barkley 3:30!!!” several times in pink ink on my calendar. Mental note: do not miss this appointment.

Well, at least it’s Friday, and as soon as I return from the vet I am cracking open a bottle of wine and grabbing myself a funnel. No, a glass. A glass.

When I went scissors-shopping this week, it took everything in my power not to immediately spend thousands of dollars on beautiful kitchenware at The Bay. Did you know Kate Spade has a whole kitchenware collection? I spent a lot of time looking at the beautiful dinnerware and oversized wine glasses, mentally picturing myself sipping from a 500 mL wine glass and eating dinner off a “in good taste” plate. Then I saw Le Creuset bakeware and, my goodness, how did I get out of there alive? Well, I remembered that I DO have lovely glassware (not 500 mL ones though) and I DO have lovely Denby dinnerware, and almost every single piece is chipped, because of children. Children, nay, TEENAGERS and fancy dinnerware are not really compatible and so I felt powerful and strong, if regretful, as I left with only scissors and two tiny cut-price Christmas ornaments.

Relatedly, I mused aloud to my husband at the end of December, wondering if I should cut back on my wine consumption for the New Year. He looked at me with what can only be described as a mix of horror and bewilderment, as he asked me why, why in the world I would think about doing that. Um, okay! Go grab the corkscrew, honey! After all, Santa did bring me some nice bottles for my stocking.

Santa also brought me this sweater, and I think it’s so cute and cozy that I just have to share:

It’s like wearing a bathrobe over all my clothes and it is just the best thing ever. Especially since this was the temperature when I dropped off the kids yesterday morning.

Brrrr!

Filing this also under “January Idiocy” is what I shall always refer to as the Music Incident. Monday afternoon I was subbing a yoga class for a lovely group of ladies. It wasn’t the first time I’d subbed for them, so I knew what they liked: a mix of gentle and more vigorous postures, a strong standing sequence followed by some slower, relaxed seated asana. They also seemed to enjoy the instrumental playlists that I had used for them in the past. I chose one of my favourites, “Peaceful Piano” for the class. Now, Peaceful Piano is a very long playlist and I have always played it from the beginning, so I confess that I had not heard every song on it. I put the playlist on shuffle and enjoyed some of the gorgeous music.

As the students went into savasana, the song changed. My mental process went something like this:

This song sounds familiar. Why do I know this song?

I’m feeling kind of agitated. Why am I so agitated?

Where is this song from?

Oh my god, it’s from Game of Thrones. This is Game of Thrones! This is the song that played right before Cersei blew everything up.

Oh my god, I’m playing a death song for savasana. A DEATH SONG FOR THE CORPSE POSE.

I wonder if anyone here watches Game of Thrones. 

I seemed to be the only person reliving (SPOILER ALERT) the death and destruction of King’s Landing and the suicide of Tommen, so I guess all is well. But whew, what a week. How many hours until I’m home from that vet appointment?

Winter Solstice, a.k.a. The Day The Vitamin D Supplement Was Meant For

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Happy Winter Solstice! As of today, we will have exactly seven hours and fifty-three minutes of daylight, which is NOT VERY MUCH. However, at least we aren’t in the Arctic! And days start getting longer tomorrow, so there’s that. Also! We are in the Final Countdown To Christmas, so there is much excitement around the Boyhouse. I have two more classes to teach before I have a week off, and let me tell you, as soon as I get home from class tomorrow, I am (finally) cracking open that Almonde Baileys I bought, putting on a pot (YES A POT) of coffee, and watching Christmas Vacation with the children. I have been looking forward to that moment for weeks now. It’s going to be glorious.

The boys – including my husband – will also be decorating their traditional gingerbread house tomorrow. We are a bit later than normal but I shrug my tired shoulders at the notion of a gingerbread house schedule. I was reminded by Facebook of the house they made eight years ago:

Nothing can top that baby. Nothing!

For those of you in the throes of festive stress, come here, sit beside me, while I make you an Almonde Baileys and coffee. It’s a stressful time, although I am currently feeling like a motherfucking boss since I zoomed over to Superstore as soon as I dropped the kids at “school” (no actual academic activities will take place on this day, thank god, since no student has any focus at the moment) and, people, I managed to rack up 9,500 PC Points. LIKE A BOSS. And it was all buying things that I would normally buy, rather than weird one-off things that will sit in my pantry for years to come. I AM THE QUEEN.

On Monday I drove past the mall on my way to get a wax (TMI? Sorry, I am literally on my second POT of coffee and my filters, as it were, are blurred) and there were cars lined up along the road just to get into the parking lot. I can’t imagine what the parking lot itself was like, but I did see a lot of very slow moving vehicles. My god, the mall. If you or someone you love is heading there any time this week, my thoughts and prayers are with you. GO WITH GOD, PEOPLE. And don’t forget to be nice to the people working the checkouts.

Hmm, I had more to say but in my coffee-fueled haze I cannot remember what. Oh yes! The banana update. Were you all on the edge of your seats, waiting for an update? Well, wait no more because here it comes: the bananas went from greenish to completely black-and-brown in a matter of 24 hours.

But, Dear Reader, you need to know that when I took off the gross peels, with the exception of the very tip, inside was a firm, yet ripe, banana.

That photo looks a little “not safe for work” and also that is what Reynaud’s looks like.

All of which is to say that while I do love Costco and all of its outsized goodness, I will never buy bananas there again.

Happy Holidays to all of you wonderful people. I wish for you a time of joy, happiness, and peace, and if anyone wants some banana bread, I have a freezer full of bananas for you. xoxo

Can you spot the Barkley?

Miracle on 34th Street, the Costco Version

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“Why? Why would you do that?” my husband asked me, looking at me like I had just escaped the asylum and was planning to sell all our possessions, move into a circus tent, and eat my own shoe. The shocking thing I was planning to do, in fact, was to go to Costco on December 19, the Tuesday before Christmas.

Truthfully, I wondered a bit at myself, but there were a few things I wanted to get and I was in that awkward spot of either a) going now, b) waiting until after Boxing Day and before New Year’s, or c) waiting until January. I couldn’t see how any of the above would be different from one another so I blocked off the whole afternoon and steeled myself for the job. I taught my usual morning class and then headed over there right away, thinking in my mind if I get there at 11:30, I’ll probably be done by 1:00, and then home by 1:30…it’s going to be okay, Nicole, it’s going to be okay. I thought if the lineups were crazy then I could practice my mindfulness, wherever I go, here I am, I repeated to myself as I drove into the parking lot.

I parked far from the doors and noticed that there were several spots to choose from. I chose the one near an abandoned cart, the sight of which usually fills me with impotent rage but I kept breathing and thinking zen thoughts. I took the abandoned cart myself, hauling it over the median and thinking of the cart like I would an abandoned dog, who needs love and attention. The parking lot was a little Frogger-like but I made it into the store without being flattened like Grandma Who Got Run Over By A Reindeer – albeit barely.

Inside the store was a pleasant surprise; I don’t know where all the people in the parking lot were, but they were not in the produce section or the shampoo aisle, nor choosing olives or almond butter. Sure, there were the requisite crowds around the sample tables, but all in all, the store seemed quiet. I walked around smiling at everyone like a friendly lunatic, hoping to shine a light that my resting bitch face does not emit, and, delightfully, people smiled back at me.

Finally, it was the moment of truth. I took a deep breath and headed for the checkouts…and there was no lineup whatsoever. People, six days before Christmas and I was in and out of Costco with a full cart in less than thirty minutes. It is a Christmas miracle! I thought happily. My entire afternoon was empty and available for chocolate bark-making.

My friend Alice (HI ALICE) swears by shopping cart karma, and I am a believer. If you rescue an abandoned cart, or you tidy up the cart corral, good things will happen to you while shopping. IT’S TRUE, PEOPLE, JUST TRY IT.

I did witness something distressing, something I hadn’t seen before so close up. I walked past a car that was backing out of its spot, very near the door. There was another car waiting with its signal light on, and behind it several cars stopped for this. As the car backed up, another car came from a different direction and very quickly – and not exactly safely, since it was icy and slippery – zoomed into the spot. It was, I will tell you, shocking. More than that, the woman in the passenger seat was looking at the patiently-waiting-signal-light-on car who was angrily honking the horn, and she was LAUGHING. Laughing, people. I shared a raised-eyebrow moment with a fellow pushing his cart and I wondered what would happen next. I didn’t wait to see the carnage though, but you can bet that Good Shopping Karma was not awaiting that woman.

Tis the season to start shopping

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I know many of you loathe November with the fire of a thousand suns, and for those of you I offer you a big hug and also the not-really-news that it is already half over! It feels like it was just Halloween, just a day or two ago, and here we are, less than six weeks away from Christmas.

I officially finished my Christmas shopping yesterday; it’s the one task I like to accomplish early so as to not worry about the mall, or, more often, shipping. I will confess that the vast majority of my shopping is done online, because really, what could be easier? Click click click, and boxes show up on my doorstep. However, sometimes a trip to the mall is necessary, which is what I did last week, to pick up a few special gifts. It’s still early enough in the season that no one was road raging in the parking lot and the customer service people were not yet in the depths of despair; on that note, don’t forget to be nice to the people working customer service. It’s a hell of a job this time of year.

Digression: I have become obsessed – OBSESSED – with PC Points, to the point where I get really excited every week to view my new offers. Sometimes they are great – 200 points per dollar spent on cauliflower, 400 points for red wine vinegar – but often they are nothing I would ever buy, which is more disappointing to me than it probably should be. However, I am avidly collecting my points and, like my Type A personality might indicate, I try to be super-efficient and collect as many as possible while not going off my actual grocery list. It’s like a linear algebra equation!

Anyway, I was involved in a conversation regarding such things, along with in-store savings, and a woman I don’t really know said When a cashier says “you saved $25 today!” I say “No, I spent $200, YOU’RE WELCOME.” This person has clearly never worked customer service: a) cashiers usually have a script that they need to follow, in order to keep their jobs, and b) wow, why would you be so rude? I invite such people to spend one day working customer service; it’s no picnic. Too long, didn’t read, BE NICE, PEOPLE.

The past two weeks have felt weird and a bit hazy; I think it’s due to the time change and our sudden plunge into darkness. No, I know it’s theoretically the same amount of daylight, minus the several minutes of daylight we lose each day at this dark time of year, just shifted, but when the sun sets before five o’clock and it’s pitch black when I’m making dinner and I know there are still five weeks left before things start to get lighter, a little bit, well, it’s disconcerting.The last few days have been foggy and ice-crystally and the sky was the same greyish-white as the ground, and it was a bit gloomy. The hoar frost was pretty but that was the only visually redeeming quality.

Bringing a little bit of joy to the gloomy day was my afternoon spent finishing my shopping yesterday. No, I didn’t go to the mall, I visited my good friend who is an artisan and she makes the most beautiful malas and bracelets you have ever seen. She custom made a bracelet for someone on my Christmas list and I was just blown away by the craftsmanship and beauty of it, and all of her wares.

Gorgeous, right? She also has something called The Goddess Collection, and you can find her on Etsy right here. She’s a dear friend of mine and I’d love it if you’d check it out or let anyone who might be interested know about it.

The new Book Fair Lady at the elementary school (HI HAYDEE) had sent me a message about the fair going on right now; the first one without me since 2009! I was happy to hear that she answered “The posters are five dollars” several thousand times; the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Today was Parent-Teacher Conferences, and there was a book fair being held at the same time! The boys perused the offerings after the conferences and I spied this:

EACH. ONLY $5.00 EACH! We had this exact same sign in the elementary school and yet it did nothing to quell the steady stream of questions regarding the monetary value of each poster. However, once one gets to junior high, the comprehension skills must be more advanced; I did not hear any such queries during my short time at the fair.

Strange things are afoot on the internet; The Shoe on the Roof

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Just in case you’ve always wondered what it’s like to live in this meteorological hellscape, on October 28 it was 24 degrees Celsius, and within a week we had a 43 degree temperature drop. It is basically impossible to acclimatize to that kind of temperature swing, and so this is what I look like when preparing for a dog walk:

Except with my head covered.

The bad weather really started on Halloween; it poured rain all afternoon and I despaired for the kids and their costumes. It had mostly let up by 7 pm, but by then, the damage had been done; the Trick or Treat crowd was greatly thinned. My own kids, however, made out like bandits, and we now have a metric tonne of candy in the house, probably to still be here next summer, if the past is any indication of the future. They were also, they said, toasty warm.

At least the snow held off until the next day, but it is a winter wonderland around here now. It’s given me a very festive feeling, and I will say that I am almost entirely done Christmas shopping, with the exception of the calendars I make for grandparents and other relatives; that shall be done this weekend, I think.

One of the things that I vowed to do this year was to read more and be on social media less. So far, so good, and since it’s November, I feel like I can pretty much say that was a New Year’s goal that I achieved. I am on my 72nd book since January 1, which I think is a pretty solid number. Notably, Simon and Schuster Canada sent me a copy of The Shoe on the Roof, and it was a very interesting read. Three homeless men all believe they are the true Messiah, and a psychology grad student decides to cure them of the delusions by bringing them all together; after all, only one can really be a Messiah. What a great thesis topic, he thinks. But the twist is that the student was himself the centre of a study; in fact, his entire childhood was exploited as a study in children’s behaviour, by his father, a renowned psychiatrist. Lots of twists and turns, it was like nothing I’d read before. I recommend it!

But I am not a book-reading robot, and so I do still enjoy my daily fix of social media. It’s a strange, strange world though, and sometimes I see things I wish I hadn’t seen.

Okay, we all know babies’ bums are adorable but…I can’t get behind (heh) this. I’m imagining the scenario in which teenaged children figure out that the table centrepiece is really an imprint of their own derriere. I’m also wondering how many diaper wipes it would take to get that paint off. I’m also…well, I just…you do you, bum imprint people. I’ll just enjoy the “tiny handprints” playgroup crafts of days of yore.

One of the things about Facebook that I like, generally, is that I can see businesses and pages that my friends have liked. I have discovered some sweet yoga sites, some tasty recipes, and some fabulous fashion that way. But then one day something pops up that you cannot un-know.

Will someone please tell me what I’m looking at, here? Actually, maybe don’t.

Is this a sauna? A portable sauna?

 

WHAT IS THIS

While something like this might come in handy for those frigid dog walks, I think I’ll pass.

Hubris

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Hubris. Definition: excessive pride or defiance towards the gods, leading to nemesis. See also: bad karma. I try very hard not to anger the gods; my husband was sick with this weirdly tenacious virus, for the better part of a month, and all the while I kept dosing myself with vitamin C and oil of oregano, and ensuring I had proper rest and liquids, because I did not want to anger the Virus Gods. So far it’s worked and I am suppressing all thoughts about my superior immune system, instead just thanking the Virus Gods for looking past me this time. Hopefully.

But hubris is a real thing, as any mother who has boasted about her angelic newborn sleeping through the night or young toddler who potty trained completely by eighteen months knows. Everything you say can and will be held against you by the gods and all those things you silently judge others for will certainly come to pass.

And so it is that I have angered the Toothpaste Gods, for writing my last post. Early this morning when I went to brush my teeth before yoga, I noticed the tube of toothpaste – that had been squeezed from the bottom AND middle – was very sticky. It was 4:30 in the morning, so I blearily wiped the excess toothpaste off the tube, wondering who made such a mess of things. Only a few hours later, when I went to brush again, I noticed something strange. The tube had come apart at the seams.

Never in my four decades of diligent brushing has such a thing occurred so I can only think that this is due to my excessive pride. You think you can just squeeze the toothpaste tube any way you like? We shall see about that. I wasn’t even sure what to do with this situation. Should I keep using the toothpaste by scraping it out, like someone brought up during the Great Depression? Should I duct tape the whole tube back together? WHAT HAPPENS NOW. It didn’t even occur to me to throw out the half-used tube, probably due to my Scottish heritage, but when I got back from teaching this morning I noticed that it was in the garbage, my husband probably thinking that such a thing would not send me into a spiral of “we just wasted $1.75” shame. But we did. We might as well have thrown seven quarters in the trash.

Let me tell you, I am taking this “for best results” thing seriously. When I wash my hair with coconut oil shampoo, if it says for best results use the matching conditioner, you had better believe that I AM GOING TO USE THE MATCHING CONDITIONER. Who knows what might happen otherwise! Maybe my hair will fall out, maybe it will change colour, maybe it will become so dry it will spontaneously burst into flames, I don’t know and I am not going to tempt the Hair Gods.

Speaking of tempting fate, yesterday I was preparing to leash up the dog to take him for his daily constitutional, when I got a notification from my neighbourhood Facebook group. Normally I don’t really give the neighbourhood group more than a cursory glance; more often than not, it’s just an advertisement for a local business’ craft night or happy hour, or information regarding a new building or redevelopment plan. Lately, though, it’s been a bit more interesting – there is a bobcat with two cubs residing in our neighbourhood. In our urban neighbourhood. The latest buzz was a video of the bobcat in a yard, only a few blocks from my house, in the middle of the day. Since my usual walk meant that I would be strolling past that particular street, I wondered if maybe I should skip it. One look at Barkley’s fuzzy face changed my mind; after all, we were probably not going to get attacked by a bobcat when there are so many rabbits and squirrels in the neighbourhood. What self-respecting bobcat would attack a person and a large, chubby dog walking along a busy street? The only thing we have to fear is fear itself, I told Barkley, who looked at me and nudged the leash in my hand. Off we went and we are still here to tell the tale.

In other Borderline Stupid Things I Have Done Lately, I picked up a book at the library that was on the “hot new picks” display. It had a picture of a dog on it, so, like I might have done 40 years ago, I immediately picked it up. It has a dog on the cover. I took it home even after reading the back and with pertinent information about the storyline. People, the next time I think that it might be a good idea to read a book about a dying dog and her extremely lonely owner, gently remind me that this is never a good idea. I am not a person who enjoys books about the compassionate ending of a sick dog’s life; there is more than enough sadness in the real world, we do not require it in the literary world. Or, I do not require it. Now I am reading What She Left Behind, which I understood from reading the back cover that it would be about Germany in the Second World War. Again, not a happy topic, but one I still feel is an important one, particularly in this day, age, and political climate. However, the back cover reviews were about a different book by the same author. This one is about, oddly, a woman committed to a state insane asylum against her will; not a cheery topic by any stretch. I am trying hard not to think symbolically or read too deeply into my unintentional book choice, because I certainly do not want to anger the Fictional Novel Gods.