Ace Hardware Blog

Excuses, Excuses

I know.  You're probably wondering where I have been for the last three weeks.  I could easily make up some far-fetched story about how busy I've been (I have) or how many trips out of state I've taken (two) or any of several other lame excuses.  I have  a much better, albeit more unusual, reason for my literary absence!

Last year Lori, Savannah and I took a trip to Russia.  We always try to fly on Midwest Airlines because they do a good job and are a Wisconsin company.  Unfortunately, Midwest does not fly to Russia (or anywhere within several thousand miles).  This trip we had to use Delta Airlines.  Being a big believer in getting something for free, I signed all three of us up for their "frequent flier" program.  Who knew, maybe we might fly with them again and be able to tally enough miles to get a free trip.  After almost a year, we did not.

Fortunately, I received an e-mail from Delta advising me of the impending demise of our frequent flier miles unless we made another trip soon.  Unfortunately, I had nowhere I wanted to fly (at least not with Delta).  Not wanting to lose all those miles, I checked their web site for something else I could use them for.  Guess what I found?  MAGAZINE SUBSCRIPTIONS!  I could convert all those miles into lots of magazines.  In fact, I was able to get 27 different titles (three of which are weeklies) and the daily Wall Street Journal all delivered to our home for one whole year, absolutely free!  I've even got two Spanish language periodicals (and I barely speak English!).  It really did seem like a good idea.... until they started arriving.

You see, we already received about 10 different magazine subscriptions before starting to receive the free ones.  This flood of reading material has totally monopolized my time.  I can barely find enough hours in the day to mow my lawn, let alone write a new blog post!  This is becoming something of a nightmare.  Not the kind where a pack of rats attack but more like being engulfed in a sea of paper.

I guess I am just going to have to stop reading and start saving them for later.  I sure hope you don't hear about me being found ten years from now in an unkempt home, piled high with magazines and newspapers.  This could really be the beginning of a serious problem.   

Times Are Changing

Anyone who's spent much time working in a hardware store knows it's impossible to predict what kind of situation will present itself next!  Over the years, I've seen a lot of things happen in our parking lot (car washes, helicopter landing, etc.), but until today, I've never seen a group of high school students milling about with a collection of farm tractors.  I assumed it must have had something to do with the last day of school (except technically, the last day is next Monday, to make up for the abundance of snow days this year!  Maybe they didn't know.) and I WAS RIGHT!  The young men explained that they were planning on driving the tractors to school to celebrate the end of the year.  I'm familiar with "take your kid to work day", but "take your tractor to school day" is a whole new concept to me.

End of the year celebrations have apparently changed since I graduated in 1979.  Being older and wiser, now that I think about it, that's probably a really good thing!