Hello sunshine and warmth!!

Ok, so I'm slacking a little bit on the road trip reporting, but we are finally in warm sunny Texas and having fun! Jimmy hasn't had a vacation in a while he doesn't know what to do!

When we first arrived we greeted the family then gave the cousins their belated Christmas presents. We took a few pictures while the kids opened and played with their toys. We caught up with the adults and drove a little past the old neighborhood. Boy, it is sure shiny with new stores!!

Speaking of shiny new stores and road trips. We get the unfortunate pleasure of stopping into a few not up to par places, which has given me a new topic for my blog. The 'I don't work here!' award. I had to say it to a manager of a retail store yesterday and have thought it many times but actually was furious enough to say it to someone yesterday!

This is how it went down: I was browsing the purse section of the retail store called Ross looking for a new wallet or purse (whichever I thought I needed the most). I found two cute wallets that I was interested in, but they did not have a 'Ross' price tag on it so I asked the associate who was scanning purses in the section if she could scan the wallets and tell me how much they were. She replied, "I can't do that because it doesn't have a Ross tag on it so you're gonna have to find something similar and then I can tell you."

Ok, so that is what I did. I spent 20 minutes going through all of their wallets to find one exactly like one of the wallets I wanted to discover that it too did not have a Ross price tag on it, so now what? I started to boil as I hear the associated talking to another about how she was going to buy a purse for her daughter. The boiling point was when she actually was on her cell phone talking to her daughter telling her about the purse and wondering if she was interested!

Um...Hello! "I DON"T WORK HERE!" was my thought and I had enough so I went to the front and spoke with the 'Front Supervisor' on duty and had to tell her all about it. It was unacceptable that I the consumer wanting to spend my money at their store in these hard economic times had to do the job that they should have done correctly in the first place!! Seriously, how hard is it to put a price tag on an item?? I don't remember how many times I said , "It's not my job" or "I don't work here!", but I said it enough and was loud enough that all eyes were on me. They asked me who it was, but I didn't want the lady to get fired because being a mom myself I figured she needed the job...I mean after all times are tough. If we were in a better economic situation and I was younger I wouldn't have hesitated in giving up her name.

The supervisor on duty handled the situation smoothly, she apologised and quickly help me get a price for the cute little change purse. Yes, I bought it...I did want it after all. I could have walked out of the store and not give them my money, but it was cute and I really wanted it.

Ross out on Highway 377 in Watauga, Texas you are the lucky recipient of the "I don't work here!" award from yours truly!

Please, please people: customers are your bread and butter. Without us you have no job because there would be no need for the building that employs you!! This applies to all businesses, especially now. How safe do you think your business is?

One more thing, the other day I was praising Starbucks but I do have a complaint about them too. I was extremely disappointed at the Starbucks in the state of Oklahoma for their lack of trash receptacles in the drive through route and absence of a changing table in the restrooms!! Unless it is part of the new image you want to create....litter on the outside of your stores and parents changing their babies on your chairs out in public eye. Two very basic needs, get it done folks!

Road trip day 1

We are on our way to visit Grandma in Texas and have stopped in Springfield Missouri for the night (half way point). The children did very well during the drive. They slept most of the drive because we left early this morning.

When they were up we sang songs and played games. What a wonderful trip so far. We just had dinner here in Springfield at Ruby Tuesday's and we were not satisfied at all with either the service or food!! We were there pretty early in the evening when it was not even busy, but the server was slow like molasses!! The food was extremely salty, my tongue is still tingling! Kai didn't even eat his dinner because he said it was "gross"! Kai is so spoiled and used to staying in nice hotels that he said, "pick up the phone and call for food!" Um....I wish we could kiddo, but it's not that kind of hotel.

It's the kind of hotel that people only stay at for short trips. Krystal Air, is clean and doesn't smell like smoke and it has wifi. It is right off the highway, walking distance to a few restaurants and has a gas station close by.

We are settling the kids in for the night so that we can rest and get another early start tomorrow. Hopefully we will be able to get some decent coffee too! Missouri needs more Starbucks!!

Which reminds me...since there are no Starbucks I asked Jimmy to stop at McDonald's to try one of their lattes, and I have to say that I will not be buying coffee beverages at McCafe! The guy that took my order asked if I wanted just the plain latte to which I replied "yes", so I was confused when I tasted my drink and it was flavored!!! I asked the guy and he said,"Yeah I sweetened it!"
I asked him to remake my coffee and not sweeten it! Jimmy and I could only drink a quarter of it and had to throw it out! The coffee not only tasted burned, it was so hot I burned my tongue!!! Hello McDonald's, the only reason Starbucks gets so many customers even though they charge an arm-and-leg for a coffee is because it tastes good and have better service!! The counter guy at McDonald's was putting down Starbucks, then even had the nerve to say that the coffee he was about to serve me wasn't any good...even though he thinks that he makes better coffee than Starbucks! Um...dude you should be fired!
I also asked about their sample program for Mondays, since they had a huge advertisement in front of their coffee machine and he said that he didn't know and that the company didn't know what they were doing and that they didn't even have sample cups to sample anything!! Hmm...what happened to training???

All this talk of coffee is getting me worked up...I'm off to bed!