Ron G.

Congratulations, eyesopen! I really admire that and will probably get a copy instead of just waiting for the movie like I would usually do. I seriously admire ANYONE who has the tenacity to sit down and write like that.

Yesterday I noticed I had several rolls of film sitting in a box under my desk, so I decided to go to Walmart and get them processed and see what they were since I’d forgotten. I tossed them in my pocket and off I went. I got there and the girl told me the print processor wasn’t working so they couldn’t do it in an hour. It’s a 45 minute drive from my house to the nearest Walmart, so I told her I’d just get CD’s made. I spent the next hour or so wandering around the store looking at assorted Chinese made merchandise and then went back to see if my CD's were ready. She told me there was a problem with one of my rolls. She said it came out of the cassette and it was wet. WET? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot??!..."How could one of my rolls be wet?" I demanded, "It came out of the cassette that way? How can that be? All five rolls came out of the same box at the same time and I carried them here in my pocket...how can one of them be wet while the rest aren’t?" "I don’t know", she replied. "Bring it here, I want to check it out" She walked over and got one of those changing boxes and brought it to me. She started to show me how to put my hands through the cloth hand holes and I explained I’d been doing it for decades and I knew what to do. I put my hands in and felt around. sure enough, the film was wet and sticky, but it was taped to the leader card. I told her to just throw it in the trash. When she opened the box, I noticed the film was dark grey. I also saw it had images on it. I sniffed my fingers and sure enough, it was RA4 developer. I showed her the images and told her OBVIOUSLY the roll had jammed up in their machine and someone had taken the top off and taken my film out and put it in the dark box. She told me her manager only told her it came out of the cassette wet and to let it dry out before putting into the machine for development. She said she knew nothing besides that. "Uh....ma’am....you were going to charge me for this?" "That’s what my manager said to do. He said we couldn't be responsible for wet film." "Lady, don’t bullsh it an old .... ter. There are images on that film and it’s been in the developer and obviouly dragged out...here...see the roller marks?" About this time, I saw tears welling up...I don’t think this girl was much more than 19 or so, so I cooled it down a bit. "Okay, where’s this manager?" "He’s left for the day." "Okay, just toss it and we’ll forget it, but DON’T LIE. I know this shi t better than your manager does and I don’t appreciate being lied to. SOME customers would get really pis sed, but I’ve been doing it long enough to know that this kind of sh it happens and with continuous roller processors, that sort of thing is sometimes unavoidable, but don’t try to tell me the film came out of the cassette wet like that, implying it’s MY damn fault just to weasel $6 out of me." That was the trigger, she was sobbing..."They didn’t train me for this...I don’t know what to do...I was just doing what my manager told me....blah blah blah WAAAHHH" Here comes some store bouncer or uberfuehrer something. "May I help you, sir?....Is this guy causing problems?" "NOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooo" she wails, "His film was ruined and I can’t help it" WAAAHHHHHH!! He looks at me with a mixture of anger and bewilderment. I told both of them, "Okay, Let me just pay for what I got and I’ll mosey on home." They both agreed to that...everyone was relieved and I went home with my CD’s. I may go back Monday and look this manager guy up, if I decide it's worth it to burn the $10 in gas to get there. There’s no moral (except Walmart sucks), punchline or really any point to this, but I thought I’d share it with everyone. Now that I shared it, I don’t feel so bad for making the little girl cry.

I wonder where I could get my hands on some of those struck without the motto. As a part time amateur numismatist, I'd love to know. As for the motto itself, I think it's especially appropriate that the motto be on the currency today as there's no other aspect of it worthy of any trust. It's just monopoly money without any backing in gold or silver...just paper and ink or alloy coinage.

Happy birthday, Hap....or is it Hap birthday, Happy....or Easter Hap....or Hape4 Easter....or ....oh hell.... Whatever, just have a good'un.