Late Dinner, Inept Cashiers And A Lot Of Hipsters

This past Monday night I was able to leave work to get some late dinner. Since I wanted something quick I decided to go across the street to Wendys even though their service has left a lot to be desired in the past. I won't be making that mistake again. There was one person in front of me and she quickly moved aside and went to get her condiments. The staff mostly stood there waiting for her order and after a few minutes the cashier told me he would be with me in a few moments. He again moved around and a few more minutes later he again told me he would be with me in a few moments and proceeded to go out the door and into the side area. After a few minutes more without seeing him return I walked out the door muttering to myself about how a good chunk of my dinner break was being wasted.

I walked back over through the parking garage to my truck and decided to make the drive to McDonalds. Once there the cashier couldn't seem to get my order right and had to have assistance with the register. Once it was rung up I could tell by the price that it still wasn't correct. She had charged me for the sandwich and not the meal as I had ordered, like I always order it. This took a little more time for them to void the order and enter it in correctly. Eventually I got my food and after sitting down I started to notice the people that were coming into the store. The place was filling up with hipsters dressed in varying shades of green. There was even a forty-five-ish lady with a lime green wig on.

I had totally forgotten that it was St. Patrick's Day and this McDonalds was in an area with a lot of bars around it. Let me be upfront with this, I don't like for hipsters. I have no time to spend on people who wear something be it clothing or glasses or whatever just to be "in" or cool or for whatever kind of validation they are searching for. I tend to be pragmatic . If it's cold outside I dress for the weather not for how I look. You'll never see me buying expensive jeans or trendy shirts. I'm fairly boring in that aspect. My wife says that I'm difficult to buy for because I want something plain and simple without giving free advertising to the company. No emblems or slogans or what have you. Look, I know what I like and at some point I'll find it. That's why it's best to let me find what I want for my birthday or Christmas.

Anyway, back to my disdain for hipsters. They are vile and evil. No really. To be a hipster be definition means you have to be fake and only care about an image so why would I want to spend my time around a person like that? I'm trying to follow the advice of Joe Rogan who has said many times to surround yourself with cool people and by that he means those that accept you for who you are and that you enjoy being around. No drama queens, no energy vampires and certainly no trendy image conscious hipsters. Life is far too short for that kind of game. Of course right now I can't do that with work but in every other aspect that's what I'm trying to do. It's a goal and something to strive for so at least I've got that going for me. So life can't all be bad.



Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

Brand Loyal

If I had to describe myself the first thing that comes to my mind is the word plain. Now don't get me wrong, to me plain is a good word, being plain is a good thing. If you add average to plain perhaps that's closer to the point. I prefer clothes that are average and plain, no labels, nothing that's in or cool at the moment, no company logo. Just plain is fine with me. Of course that makes me different from a lot of people in the world but that's fine with me, I've never felt like I fit in with what the mainstream world does anyway.

My color preference has always been for darker or earth tones. It's very rare to find me in a red shirt, hat, etc. As a matter of fact I don't think I own much that is red. Orange and yellow are out of the question. I just don't like things that are bright because overall bright equals flashy and that goes against my whole plain ethos. This also bleeds over into other areas, like cars. I've never owned a brightly colored car in my life and never will if I can help it. Right now I've got an old white truck and that's as bright as I can get. Most of the vehicles I've owned were older, a good deal of them beaters and I've never even owned a brand new vehicle. The closest I ever came was one that was three years old.

I've been that way as long as I can remember. Back in the 70s when I was a child designer jeans became very much in demand. Everybody had to have them at my school. Everybody but me that is. To me it didn't make sense, the only thing really different about these jeans was that there they used some extra stitching to put the brand name on the pocket. Otherwise they looked pretty much the same as any other pair of jeans. That's it. For the privilege of paying three or four times the cost of a regular pair of jeans that's what you got. I still don't get the sense of paying solely for a name.

Another descriptive thing about me is that I'm what you call brand loyal. On the rare occasion that I do choose to wear something that's not plain I will wear something that shows my support for a team, product or cause. However I will not wear another teams clothing no matter how popular they are or even if I am given the clothing for free. For instance, I am a fan (sadly) of the Cleveland Browns and will only wear a shirt from them, not any other NFL team. The NFL of course wants people to be fans of the league more than any one certain team. That way they watch more games which drives up ratings which drives up the cost of commercial time which means more money in their pockets.

Many years ago my younger sister went to Florida and when she came back she gave me an Orlando Magic (NBA) t-shirt. While I didn't expect and even appreciated the gift, it sat in the bottom of my closest for about a year before I gave it away with some other clothes to charity. More recently my mother-in-law had sent me two shirts that I could wear to work but both had designer logos on them and I asked my wife if she could get the receipt so that I could return them and get something plain. Well, my wife is from Peru that was considered to be rude but I'd rather be rude than let them sit and end up giving them away. One good thing that came from it is now my mother-in-law knows what I like (and how I am) and about three weeks ago she sent me two more shirts, exactly how I like them. In both cases I really appreciated the thought and the gift but I had to stand by my convictions.

To sum it all up what does this messof opinions mean, other than that I'm weird? I can't really say. It's just an apt description of me, what I like and what I feel like. I feel quite happily that I'm plain and brand loyal, it's just the way I am for better or worse. The lesson is don't go sending me a bunch of bright flashy shirts (bowling and rockabilly type shirts do seem to be an exception) although if you do I promise I'll find them a happy home and I'll truly be thankful that you thought of me.

Published by Don Leach