I got into my hotel, unloaded things, and headed off to dinner at Olive Garden, my newly found love. Thank you to A for getting me addicted to this. Sadly, Never Ending Pasta Bowl ended yesterday, so it may be a while before I go to back to Olive. Anyways, dinner alone was the usual. Rather boring. Fortunately, I got a new cell phone charger today (Thank you Verizon for replacing it for free and upgrading me to a better quality charger) so my phone had enough battery to make it through dinner, for once. Occasionally at restaurants some of my friends and I play "what's their story?", a little game where look a table and try to figure out just who people really are based on what the look like, what they are eating, body language, etc. Personally, I find this an incredibly fun past time. I wish it was socially acceptable to make a guess and then ask the people if we were right, but that might get some people really mad. Might ruin the fun too. Normally, this game is most fun when played in a group because you can build off other people's guesses. Being bored and alone, I found myself playing this game tonight. A family of four women, out on a shopping day since the kids had the day off. A group of high school friends, now well into their 50s having a mini reunion. And a couple - or maybe they weren't a couple. I never decided. I think good friends with good potential for more. I wonder if they both saw it or if only one loved the other and the other was totally clueless. Olive Garden is very much a couply restaurant, so I started playing married, dating, friends, or siblings. My odds of guessing this was right is higher than guessing their life stories. Especially when they reach across the tables and hold hands or something like that.
This week's rental car had a valet ticket for Hotel du Pont attached it. It certainly wasn't mine, but it made me wonder who had this car last. I Googled the hotel. It's in Wilmington, Deleware. That's a little ways from here. I wonder who they were. The hotel is stunning. And a deal at $400 a night, for the cheapeast room. Yowza. I'm guessing they were an older couple, splurged on a fancy room for their anniversary. Traveled around the Mid Atlantic states for a long weekend. They had a great time, though their Jeep Patriot didn't match their fancy hotel room. I bet they felt out of place checking it with the valet.
I often wonder what people think of me. The lone diner with no friends? Got stood up on a date? New in town? On business? On the plane I certainly make judgments on other people, and surely people are judging me. Am I just the girl with an expensive neck pillow who never puts it around her neck? It's true. I'd much rather hold it. Like a grown up stuffed animal. Occasionally its a pillow. Sometimes an arm rest. Sometimes just something to hold on to. Great investment. I'd recommend it.
After dinner I headed out to the grocery store to buy some drinks and lunch food. I was in the middle of a major shopping street and couldn't find a grocery store. I thought hhgregg sounded like a grocery store so I went there. Turns out, it's not. The only thing I could find after 15 minutes was an Aldi's. We have Aldi's at home but I'd never been. I knew it was cheap though, so I headed over.
In case you have never been to an Aldi's, apparently what I am about to say is pretty standard fare at every location. If only I had known this advance. So take this as a lesson! I get to Aldi's and go to take a cart. It's chained to the cart in front of it. All of them are. I stand there like a moron shaking the carts, trying to unscrew the bolt, break a magnetic field, find a broken lock or something. After a while, I went in and asked the one person at a register. Apparently you have to put a quarter into the cart as a deposit. When you return the cart, you get the 25 cents back. I have to pay for a cart?! What the heck is that. What if you had no quarter? A dime wouldn't work. Do
you have to carry all your groceries?! I didn't know that this is how all Aldi's were, but I initially thought the people of Philly must be so horrible that they run off with all the carts. Therefore, all carts must be locked up! Turns out that isn't the reason. Then I did my shopping and went to check out. The woman rang up my 10 items and put them back in the cart. Then she asked me if I wanted a bag. Yes I want a bag! Do you expect me to carry apples, turkey, mayo, a loaf of bread, a 24 pack of water, and snacks in my hand?! She pointed to the bags. Six cents each for paper. Ten cents for plastic. 99 cents for a reusable bag. What the heck is this?! I bought a plastic bag and swiped my credit card. "We don't accept credit." That's how I pay for everything, on my company credit card. Great. Then she pushes my cart, filled with unbagged items away form the register and starts ringing up the next guy. Not knowing what to do or what bagging etiquette was, I wheeled all my stuff outside to the car and bagged it while I loaded it into the car. Strange. Then I brought my cart back and claimed my quarter. What a bizarre experience.On the way back to the hotel, I called my step dad who explained the Aldi's system to me. Apparently, the store is supposed to be as cheap as possible. To keep prices low, you have to pay for a cart so the store doesn't have to charge more to compensate for lost carts. Similar thing with bags. If you don't need a bag, you don't have to pay for them to provide bags to other customers. And they don't accept credit because credit card companies charge the supermarket a fee to have credit available as an option. This all keeps prices lower. I suppose if you know all this is coming, it's a pretty good deal. I appreciate their low cost efforts. If Abercrombie didn't have to pay a lot of money for fancy naked models on their bags made out of nice material, the over all cost might be lower!
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