I Flipped Out on the Photo Guy at Target Yesterday

It was well deserved.

Allow me to vent....

Yesterday I pulled myself out of bed, got dressed, and headed to Super Target around 11 am to beat the afternoon flood of people who are using their lunch hour to finalize their Christmas shopping. I didn't want to be in the midst of long check out lines...I wanted to get in - and out - quickly. I went to simply pick up some pictures that I sent in for processing this past weekend - and to get just a few groceries and the ingredients to make some cranberry-oatmeal cookies for my honeylover.

Well....Super Target wasn't exactly "stocked up" on things. Knowing that I now had to go to another grocery store to pick up less than five items urked me. Aside from the mall, we all know the grocery store is a mad house these days. I check out with all my items and make my way to the photo processing center to quickly pick up my photos. I thought it would be a breeze. I give my name, they pull my pictures, I pay, and leave with my photos. It's always been that painless. Well, not yesterday.

When I approached the counter, the guy in the photo center was on the phone - apparently trying to assist a woman whose photos never registered in their system for processing. I waited patiently. Keep in mind it was now around 12:30 p.m. and I was starving. Not to mention my back was killing me, I was hot, and floods of people started coming into the store. It was my time to escape.

The photo guy gets off the phone and he's casually frazzled. I say casually because he's "a wreck and a half" trying to do his job but doesn't really mind that he's moving at a snails pace. At this point I'm bending over the counter to stretch out my back and waving a piece of paper in front of my face to get some air. About ten minutes go by and I haven't even been spoken to. He does see that I'm standing here, riiiight?? I've really been trying to practice patience here and I didn't want to break whatever "concentration" he had going on - so I went up to the customer service counter {that literally shared the same space with the photo center, and where there was no one in line} and kindly asked the lady if she could pull my pictures. Her response was, "you have to wait over there; he handles that". I take a deep sigh. I wait another 10 minutes.

She comes over and says, "has he helped you yet?". Ummm...lady, you DO still see me standing here, right?? I say, "no, I'm still waiting". She asks for my last name, I give it to her, she opens the drawers and says, "I don't see your pictures. He's gonna have to help you". I discover the photo guy has a voice when, after hearing my last name, he tells the lady that my pictures are sitting "over there" but apparently it's too much for her to put them in a cardboard flap so again she tells me, "he's gonna have to help you" and she proceeds to walk away. By now, the little patience is just about gone. I can't stand lazy people!

I hear the photo guy talking outloud saying, "I just had those pictures. Where are they?". In the meantime, the lady who he was helping is looking at me puzzled wondering if she's ever going to find out the status of her missing order. There's another teenage girl standing there {simply waiting for her receipt} and then another woman walks up and asks me if I'm in line. Before I can even answer her, he asks her what she's there to pick up. Uhhh....NO HE DIDN'T!!! I'm curious if I appear invisible {I was in a RED sweater no less!}. That was it.

I ask the 30-ish photo guy if my order is back there and never, ever looking me in the eye he says outloud that he has my 4x6's but can't find my 5x7's. Let me emphasize that photo guy was in no way physically or mentally challenged. He was just utterly unqualified to fulfill a simple position. He walks away and goes to the printer. To do what? I don't know, because he's not communicating with anyone. And here's where I just lose it.

I loudly ask him if he's re-printing my 5x7 photos. He says yes, but then asks me how many of each photo did I order because the machine is automatically printing 6 of each. My response? "Whatever quantity I input online is what I ordered. I assumed it would be processed accordingly, especially since this was a 1 hour photo order and I placed it 5 days ago". Photo guy has no response. He remains standing in front of the printer. Totally unfazed. And then I blow a gasket.

I tell him, "Look, I've been standing here for going on 45 minutes. Clearly you can see that I am 9 months pregnant, which means I am hot and bothered - and that's putting it mildly. I have a cart full of groceries - some items are frozen, which are now likely defrosted. My photo order should have been ready for an easy-breezy pick up 5 days ago; now you're telling me that you lost half of my order while I've been standing here. This is ridiculous. I'm going to at least need a discount applied to this order!". I don't think I took one breathe while saying all that. It all came out in one long run-on sentence. I was peeved. Then he looks at me {he actually looks at me!} and says, "I understand. I won't even charge you". The 5x7's finish printing, he hands me my order and I'm more than over that place by that time. I exit with a deep sigh and welcome the feeling of 47 degree weather to cool me off.

On a side note: I accidentally found myself in an aisle that I haven't visited in 9 months...the sanitary pad aisle. And a light bulb went off. I'm gonna need some pads post-delivery. I know the hospital provides sanitary pads for women after they have given birth but it's not like they're going to throw a two week or monthly supply my way. So I use my blackberry to type in "best pads to use after birth of baby" wanting to see what other moms who have "been there, done that" recommend. The response that came up: Network out of service. Lovely. So I had to wing it. And that's exactly what I did. Literally. I bought the Always pads with wings {and later discovered this is the brand that came up most recommended}....

About the only fun thing that I did at Target was buy some more cute things for Ilah. I got the below pieces off of the clearance rack, and mostly all were around $5....

I noticed that Ilah doesn't have many 9 month jammies so I picked her up some cute ones that had footsies {I took the advice of other moms who recommend stocking up on footed pajamas in the winter because when summer rolls around, the majority of the pajamas are without them}.

The Paul Frank jammie on the left is 3-6 months, the one on the right is 9 months....

Other 9 month footed pajamas....

When I got home from the insanity of Target, I popped a pot roast in the oven for dinner {it was the first time I made one}. I seasoned it up, cooked it for 3 hours and it was surprisingly really good! Of course, the below picture isn't mine but rather just a visual {mine was more charred on top, we like that toughness!}....

Back to those pictures I picked up...they were our wedding pictures. I've been wanting to frame a few of them for quite some time and finally got around to it.

I placed one on my nightstand {Dele's nightstand has a picture of us from a trip we took to the Cayman Islands}....

I placed another one on top of our tall chester drawer {this is a picture when we changed into Nigerian attire}....

And then I placed this one in our livingroom....

I finished the evening off by breaking into a bag of bbq chips while watching House Hunters on HGTV. It's true - you can't eat just one potato chip. But this pregnant woman ate her way to the bottom of the bag. That's NEVER happened before. Before I knew it, I was taking in crumbs. I should have slapped my own hand half way in!