How to kill an hour at 7-Eleven

I've had better mornings.

Not that it went horribly to begin with. It actually was just fine until about 8:00am. The girls got up and ready for school and Ron even took Becca with him - he got the day off but had to run into work quickly to drop off his paperwork from yesterday. He planned to drop Becca off at daycare afterward.

I was enjoying not having to make the trip to daycare and having a bit of extra time on my drive to work. So I stopped at 7-Eleven to pick up a few snacks and a granola bar for breakfast. Everything was normal, fine, and hunky-dory.

Until I went to get back into my van. It was locked. And I was staring through the driver's side window at my keys.

Lying on the passenger seat of my van. Inside the van. The locked van.

I've locked my keys in my car before - everyone has at one time or another, I'm sure. It always seems to happen at the most inconvenient times too. Of course my purse and cell phone were in the van as well - I'd just grabbed my wallet out of my purse, and apparently had laid my keys on the passenger seat while I did so. And forgotten to pick them back up.

Ok, so this wasn't too horrible. I had my wallet. I had breakfast and a few snacks. And it was 7-Eleven - I mean, not my favorite hang-out place in the world, but at least they have magazines and newspapers to look at. And a phone.

Unfortunately the phone didn't help me too much. I called work to let them know I'd be late. And then I called Ron's cell phone.

He didn't answer - I got his voice mail.

Now Ron has 2 cell phones. I knew he'd left his work Nextel one at home because I saw it on the couch before I left. I didn't know if he had taken his personal one - he has a tendency to forget things like that from time to time.

So I called our daycare provider and asked her to tell him to head to 7-Eleven after he dropped Becca off there. He'd said he should be dropping her off between 8:30 and 9:00am.

So I waited. For an hour. And I learned a few things during my wait.

• Apparently our 7-Eleven store's staff doesn't believe in dusting. I'm not sure I'd trust buying food items with a thick layer of dust on them. We can purchase peanut butter, jelly, Hormel 'No Beans' chili cans, a lovely assortment of chips, cookies and candy, and baby food though if we're so inclined. And diapers - I'll have to remember that.
  
  
• They don't update their stock very often anyway - I saw several bottles of Herbal Essences shampoo where the packaging was at least a year or two out of date.
  
  
• Things like umbrellas, motor oil, cold remedies and sidewalk chalk apparently aren't very popular judging by the coating of dust on those items.
  
  
• They stock many more 'guy' magazines than 'girl' ones. Motorcycle and car magazines being the most popular. They do have a few female-oriented ones - I learned that Ivanka Trump is the world's sexiest boss, I can reshape my body in only a month, America Ferrara (Ugly Betty) is HOT!, and Ali Landry is fearless about life and love. Good to know, I guess...
  
  
• Of the 7 newspapers they had, only 2 showed anything on the front page, above the fold, about 9/11 or today being the anniversary (one more paper did say something on the front page, below the fold though). I found that very sad. All of them had lead stories on the Iraq hearings going on right now.
  
  
• I can only wander around 7-Eleven for about 15 minutes before getting horribly bored.
  
  
• The plywood covering one of their front glass doors is there because a kid crashed his car into the front of the store. I mean, it's not a bad neighborhood, but I was still a bit worried when I saw that originally...
  

I tried calling Ron's cell phone twice more and got his voice mail both times. When he finally drove up, (thank you, thank you to our daycare provider for remembering to tell him!) I asked him where his phone was. His answer? "In my pocket".

Yep. The darn thing never rang! And it showed no missed calls from the store or anywhere else. Which really ticks me off - what if this had been a worse emergency? Or I hadn't been able to get a hold of him another way? Why did I hear the phone ringing and get his voice mail if the phone never actually rang? After he let me into my van, I tried calling his phone from my phone. Guess what? It rang. UGH!

I was all set to be mad at Ron for not having his phone with him, but have to displace my anger onto AT&T instead. I can't seem to get a hold of them since their 'e-mail us' form on their website is not working. And their Live Chat technician was unable to give me an e-mail address either. They will be getting an irate (but polite) phone call from me later today.

I mean if we pay the high rates for the darn cell phone, we kind of expect it to actually work when we need it to after all... Or is that too much to ask?

So I got to work an hour late, and very embarrassed. Sigh. Happy Tuesday...

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