Warning! Hard Drive Full

In his retirement, the immensely talented but psychotic baseball great Ty Cobb had a standard response to any human being that dared disagree with anything he had to say:

'Don't...heighten...my tension level!!'

It probably doesn't surprise the readership here that I feel that way myself sometimes. And in my quasi-paranoid state lately, I find that there have been oh so many obstacles to true serenity. The traffic, especially here in Chicago, where this summer there are three major expressways under construction at the same time, a brilliant stroke of genius. The computers, where I used to be on the cutting edge, and could take apart a desktop and reassemble it without more than five pieces left laying on the floor. But that was in the day of Windows 3.1---aren't they all the way up to Win95 now?

But I've found the gold standard, the holy grail, that will rocket a man's stress level to epic proportions. It took place late this afternoon, when after work I needed to replenish grocery supplies at the local Dominick's supermarket, which has been commandeered by Safeway for lo these many years.

It had been a long drive from the office, finishing a workday where the computer network had freaked for no apparent reason. I walked in to the store, organized list in hand, and found that at least half the items were in different places. Spatial reorganization. For a minute I thought I was in a recurrent dream where things are the same yet a little different, only in this reality I was still wearing my pants.

But wandering aimlessly to the aisle that originally had Kalamata olives only to find SOS pads is disconcerting indeed, leading me to the inevitable passing thought that all of us middle-agers (Marrone, when did I become one of them?) have during the occasional brain cramp--'is this me all the time twenty years from now?'

And believe me, I wasn't the only one questioning this move. Almost every shopper was in the same rudderless boat as I, peering from behind their carts in a zombie-like trance. Our eyes would meet with a knowing, sad look that said, yes, we have to learn the whole damn store layout all over again. Problem is, I'm at the point in my existence where no new information can be stored in my brain without some other data having to be removed, and I might need that stuff!

More important than my wretched reaction to the change is trying to determine the purpose of this dastardly action. In this world, I suppose it's possible that some Safeway honcho came down from Pleasanton, CA to northern Illinois, surveyed the situation & then the dull, corporate lightbulb went off in his head.

"Eureka! Call the minions! I've got a way to make myself look good, find busy work for these lowly storepeople to offset lack of sales, and maybe move a few more Safeway Select macadamia nut cookies at the same time. We'll move everything around! Don't worry, the customers will adapt."

Later,

Jay