penguins

That was neat. Went to 'the mall' last night, Harrisburg East to be exact, After Hours Tux was the goal. First time I've set foot inside a mall in a long, long, longlonglong time, small bit of culture shock. Wander around looking for the directory map thingy, then find the stairs and up to the second floor. Prom is in season, so the place was packed, at least as packed as a 10' square retail space can be. Get my form, fill out the info, slip on the generic fitting pants and shoe, then wait, and wait, and let my sinus infused headache grow. This fella comes in right behind me, to pick up his tux. They shuffle a bunch of papers, he's says he called and was told it was ready yesterday. Uh oh, there's an issue, his tux isn't there. So, he occupies my 'associate' for a good bit of time while they try to figure out where his tux is. His tux is not in the building. Every other tux for the wedding party is there, but not his. They check the computer, they look at the forms, shuffle more papers, you know the drill......dude is getting pissed.

Turns out, they claim, that payment was never rec'd, so the tux was never 'ordered.' They got him all measured up, have his ID security stuff on file, even have his credit card info. But never swiped the card for whatever reason, so they claim no payment, no tux. Sounds simple right? Here's my question....if you gave them your card info, and they took it all down, then why the hell didn't they just swipe the card then and there? Somebody dropped the ball, one way or the other. They go back and forth about why didn't anyone call? We did call, here's the records of our calls... back n forth, back n forth. They explain that this really isn't a problem, just give us the card or whatever again for payment, and we'll have your tux here tomorrow, since we already have all the measurements. Dude is obviously not calming down, not loud pissed, but smoldering pissed. We've all been there, you're in public and you really wanna tear these incompetant boobs a new one, but you can't, because you're above all that.

Then I hear him say: Well, I'll go get the receipts from my fiance, she's over at another store.

Yeah, this dude was the groom, his wedding is like tomorrow or something, and no tux for him. Putting together a wedding must be a lot of fun, I left the building feeling quite confident that this will all go smoothly.....I'll be sure to have my receipts with me.

Latest bike news, the 11ish hours in the 40ish degree weather beat me down enough to open the door for a bit of a seasonal change cold infection, just like every other bloggity blog cyclist I follow. This planned 'off week' timed out nicely for the needed recovery. A nice 2 hour fixy spin w/ Bucky on Tuesday blew some snot outta my head and all but finished off my 'base work.' Clicked the Cateye at the end of the ride, and I'm sitting 3.5 miles short of my 1000 goal. So, we'll put that to bed tonight, then I get to start purposeful intensity, where I might actually seek out the pain, instead of just letting it come to me as the terrain dictates. What does that mean? Time to climb baby, it's time to climb. First 'race' effort is on the horizon, 10mile o&b club TT on the road next Weds. Wonder how fast I'll be able to spin that 40:15, those start and finish kickers should be fun.....bring it.