“So I walked into an Aldi….”

Tuesday morning arrived and I told my husband that if a phone call didn’t occur, asking me  to substitute teach, I was going to go to Aldi  and get the groceries purchased for the week.  No phone call came, so off I went to the store, with my list made out and in one hand, and my quarter in the other, so I could retrieve a grocery cart from the outside cart corral.

It was an uneventful trip around the aisles as I made my shopping choices and placed items in the cart.  Mornings are usually a good time to shop at Aldi as it’s not too crowded yet.  If you are unfamiliar with what an Aldi store is, know that they are a wonderful, yet no frills grocery store that saves my family’s budget  a sizable amount of money  each year. ( Here is a fun article to read that explains what an Aldi store is like, how they’re linked  with Trader Joe’s, and why they sell groceries for such a lower price.)

I took my purchases to the check out area and got in line behind an elderly lady who was working fast to put her items on the conveyor belt.  The only other check out lane was occupied by a customer with a cart loaded with a lot of groceries, so folks who didn’t have as much as that customer were lining up behind me.  Suddenly I heard a loud voice bark angrily at the cashier who’s line I was in.  “That is NOT the price on this item! There was a red sign saying that these were on sale!!”  The angry voice belonged to a tall, elderly man.  By his speech pattern I could tell he was an educated person, probably a retired professor, was my immediate thought!  (We have a university in our town.) He was angry that the computer kept ringing up the item at a much higher price.  The cashier, who amazingly remained very calm and patient with this rude customer got on her walkie-talkie and asked for a price check.  A lady from the manager’s office popped her head out and when asked by the cashier about the item’s price, was told that the computer was correct.  Then she went right back into the office.  This only incensed the customer more and he barked an order to the cashier to follow him to the area where he found the item so he could show her the sale price.  At this point the man behind me sighed, and got into a new line that had just opened in a 3rd checking out lane.  Soon the cashier returned and told the man that the item was on sale and she rang up the item according to the new price.  The man didn’t say thank you at all and handed the next item on the conveyor to the cashier.  When she scanned it, you guessed it.  The computer  was not showing the right price and once again the elderly man barked out, “WRONG!”, and told the cashier to follow him to another area of the store to check that item’s price!  As the cashier walked off she made eye contact with me and mouthed out the words, “I am so sorry!” I smiled wanly at her and told her it wasn’t her fault.  Then I joined the man who had been behind me and got into that third line.  That man shook his head at me and said, “Some people!”  I agreed and said   that someone was a grouch today!  I soon realized that the little old lady who had scurried and hurriedly put all of her items on the conveyor belt was the wife of that grouchy old man!  ” That poor lady!”, I thought to myself.    

As I left the store and drove home, I thought about the entire incident.  The cashier should have been commended for remaining so quiet and calm in dealing with such an irate customer.  I was critical of the lady in the store’s office.  I think she should’ve come all the way to that cashier’s station and done the price checks and dealt with this grouchy old man.  Instead of helping his wife put the groceries on the conveyor, he decided to stand there and loudly complain about prices on two products, and then demanded the cashier go with him on his price check journeys.

I wondered if in his past career(s) he was used to being in charge of people? Was he a bigshot at the work site? He certainly carried himself in such a way that it was pretty evident he felt that he was a  very superior person to the cashier.  Was he not feeling well this day? I wondered that too, as sometimes when one is not feeling one’s best, it’s easy to become cranky with the public.

From my observations,  I wondered as to how I treat the people I meet each day? Do I treat them with respect and patience and kindness like the cashier did, even under the stressful environment of shoppers waiting to check out, and a customer angrily barking orders at her?  What if she’d had said no, telling the man that the computer price is right, what would he have done then?  Marched off to the manager’s office himself and banged on the door?  Stated he wouldn’t leave that check-out lane until he was a satisfied customer?

I hope that I can be calm and focused and kind like the cashier, in any and all circumstances.   She really was an inspiration to witness, a true picture of grace under pressure.  I hope that when I shop, or eat in a restaurant, I treat the employees with respect and not condescension.  I did tell my husband today that if I ever turn into a cranky senior citizen when out shopping, he has permission to haul me out of that store and pronto!

 

Article about Aldi, from Slate by Rebecca Schuman.  December 2, 2013.

My Classic Movie Pick: 1948’s The Woman in White

Wilkie Collins, English novelist and some say the creator of the first modern detective novel, wrote an absorbing story, The Woman in White, in 1859.  Warner Brothers decided to made a film version of Collin’s novel in 1948.  Turner Classic Movies aired it this past week, so I tuned in and was not disappointed with this tale of mystery, romance, and murder! Beautiful ladies in distress, a handsome hero trying to unravel the strange goings on, and a trio of baddies.  Let’s dive in to this atmospheric and eerie film!

 

Walter Hartright(Gig Young) has been hired to be the art tutor for heiress Laura Fairlie(Eleanor Parker).  He arrives in the English town of Limmeridge, late at night.  Since it’s a full moon and he learns the walk to the Fairlie estate is only 30 minutes from where the stagecoach has deposited him, he decides to walk to the estate.  On the way, a young woman dressed in a white dress and a white cape, startles him as she emerges from some nearby shrubbery.  She is Ann Catherick(Eleanor Parker, in a dual role) a very pretty woman with her long hair loose around her shoulders, but she also appears to be quite troubled.  Hartright, being a gentleman, asks how he can help her.  Ann replies that he is to tell no one that he saw her, and when a carriage begins to approach, she shudders and runs away.  In the carriage is  Count Fosco(Sydney Greenstreet) and Dr. Nevin(Matthew Boulton) who asks Hartright if he’s seen a young woman roaming about, that she’s escaped from the nearby asylum!!  Hartright remembers Ann’s request and he tells the two men that he hasn’t seen anyone.  Within these first 5 minutes of the movie, we have met the hero, Hartright, one of the ladies in distress, Ann,  and one of the main baddies, Count Fosco.

Ann Catherick, The Woman in White, meeting Hartright,

Hartright makes it to the Fairlie estate, and is greeted by Laura Fairlie’s first cousin, Marian(Alexis Smith) who warmly explains the household to him: various butlers, Laura’s retired nurse Mrs. Vesey(Emma Dunn),and Frederic Fairlie(John Abbott) the incredibly nervous, annoying invalid of an uncle to Marian and Laura.  Uncle Frederic goes on and on about how loud sounds upset his nerves; his lines reminded me of Vincent Price’s lines from Roger Corman’s The Fall of the House of Usher.   The next morning, Hartright sees Ann from the night before but he is greatly mistaken for this young woman is not Ann but is Laura Fairlie, his new student.   Laura has a bit of fun telling all at the breakfast table of Hartright’s encounter with the woman in white.  This immediately causes Count Fosco’s eyebrows to shoot up.  Why does he seem so startled and a bit irritated that Hartright had met this woman in white?  Why does this woman in white, Ann, look so similar to Laura?  We begin to wonder at these events as the movie continues.

Laura, Hartright, and Marian listen to Mrs. Vesey as she recalls Ann Catherick

Love begins to bloom and blossom between Laura and Hartright, and we can also tell that Marian is in love with Hartright  but she’s trying to fight that emotion.  One afternoon during an art lesson outdoors, Laura becomes upset with her efforts at painting and runs away from Hartright, crying.  Marian is able to pull Hartright aside and give him the news that Laura hadn’t and should have, that Laura is engaged to marry Sir Percival Glyde(John Emery) and that Sir Glyde is due at the estate that very day!  Hartright decides to do the honorable thing and pack up and leave the estate.  He doesn’t know that  Count Fosco was spying on he and Laura during a passionate kiss.  Hartright also doesn’t know that a letter that gives information about another little girl who used to live at the estate and play with Laura, an Ann Catherick, was stolen by the Count.   Ann, all grown up, who has been forcibly placed in the asylum by Count Fosco, as part of his evil plan to have Sir Glyde marry Laura, then have Laura slowly poisoned, so Glyde will receive the inheritance, and he’ll split it with Count Fosco!  Ann knows of this evil plan, and keeps escaping from the asylum  to try to get to Laura to warn her!

Laura shares her fears about Fosco and Sir Glyde with Marian

Evil Count Fosco

Will Laura marry Sir Glyde? How does Count Fosco have the legal power to force Ann into an asylum?  Will Hartright come back to the estate to stop the wedding?  Will Count Fosco and Sir Glyde’s plan be foiled?  What will happen to Marian and her love for Hartright? It sounds like a crazy plot but by the film’s end, all questions will be answered.   Also,  pay attention to the great Agnes Moorehead as Count Fosco’s long-suffering wife. She enters into the movie at the halfway point, but her character is a key that will unlock the shenanigans that belong to Count Fosco and Sir Glyde.  For an intriguing story acted by a great cast, seek out 1948’s The Woman in White.

Agness Moorhead as Countess Fosco

The mystery is starting to be solved

Book Review : Discussing Mere Christianity

2017 rolled around and prior to it’s arrival, our church listed on its Facebook page the new Adult Sunday School topics/classes coming in the new year. My  husband and I had attended Sunday School classes at our church, when we first arrived in Rolla in 2011, but had slacked off from attending such classes over the past two years.  We still are regular attendees at the church services, but we had allowed going to  Sunday School  classes to fall by the wayside.  So when I saw that one of the classes being offered was a study of C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity, I told my husband about it and we both went to the class this morning.

Specifically, the book we are using in class, Discussing Mere Christianity, by Devin Brown and Eric Metaxes, has a dvd that accompanies it.  Today’s dvd gave fascinating background about London of 1941 which is when C.S. Lewis, an English professor at Oxford, received a request to broadcast on the BBC radio and give 15 minute discourses on christianity, once a week.  Lewis’s discourses on christianity were so popular with the listening audience in England, especially during a dark time historically with World War II raging, London being mercilessly bombed, that these broadcasts were typed up and became Lewis’s book, Mere Christianity.  I had not known that information at all prior to today’s class.

C.S. Lewis was born in 1898, in Ireland.  His parents were avid readers, and he and his younger brother Warren were taken regularly to a Protestant church.  Lewis and his brother didn’t enjoy the church services and found them very dull; the rote of the weekly services intended to show how different this church was in comparison to Roman Catholic masses.  In 1908, Lewis’s mother died, which understandably upset her sons’ world as well as their father’s.  Within a month of their mother’s death, both boys were packed off to a boarding school.  After attending a couple more boarding schools, Lewis decided God didn’t exist and became an atheist.  When he was eventually hired to teach at Oxford University, he befriended J.R.R. Tolkien, Hugo Dyson, and T. D. Weldon, all professing christians.  Through many discussions with Lewis, and debates, Lewis’s atheism gave way to theism(the belief that there is a god) to a conversion that happened in two parts: one from an all night walk and talk with Tolkien and Dyson, and then a trip to a zoo with his brother, who interestingly was also about to abandon his grasp of atheism for christianity.  In between these two events, Lewis decided to actually read the 4 gospels found in the New Testament and was struck with how they sounded more like actual reports than made up stories.

The appeal of Lewis’s radio broadcasts for the BBC was that he didn’t want to embroil the listeners in doctrinal issues that existed then and still do, among the various christian churches.  He wanted to appeal to the listeners with logic and plain speaking in order for them to realize that christianity is real, that God is real.  He sent his notes for the broadcasts to area ministers and priests for their opinions to make sure what he was going to say would meet all of their approvals at getting to the heart of christianity.

As I stated, my husband and I have only begun this study of looking at Lewis’s book, but we found the topic interesting and very relevant for today’s christians to read and ponder as they grow in their faith.

If one wants to read more about C.S. Lewis and his writings, which The Chronicles of Narnia being his most famous body of work, go to this link.  With this first post for 2017, I do wish all of my readers a blessed 2017.