The Mr. Brown Network

I went to Office Depot today with Jennie to purchase just a few things – namely, paper and a new USB thumb drive. While we were there, a printer caught my attention, the HP OfficeJet 6500 All In One Printer, mainly because we’ve been in need of a fax machine for a while, and I want a printer that I could use to print out the occasional color photo (right now, we have a HP LaserJet P1006 Printer, a nice, and cheap, laser printer that prints for about 2-4 cents/page, depending on the settings).

While I’m looking around, a female employee comes up to me. She asks me if I need help with anything, and as always, I say, “No thanks, I’m just looking around.” I hate dealing with floor employees – most of them have no idea what they’re talking about, and they’re just trying to earn a commission. Luckily, this one went on her way.

I go back and meet Jennie in another section of the store, and another employee comes up to us; this time, it’s a guy. He asks the same annoying question, and I tell him the same thing, immediately turning and heading out of the section. I mention to Jennie that I saw a printer that I liked and made my way over to the section. Little did I know the employee was following us because he overheard us talking about printers.

Immediately, he asks “Do you need help with anything in this section?” I tell him the same thing – no we’re just looking. Instead of leaving us alone, he starts asking about our printing needs. I tell him I have a laser printer, and I’m just looking. He then asks if I print some ridiculous (75,000) number of pages a month, and I tell him no – I do not tell him anything about my printer, toner cartridge, etc.

He then proceeds to tell me that I’m getting ripped off by my printer, despite the fact that he knows nothing about it. He tells me that my printer is costing me over 6 cents a page to print, and that the ink jet I’m looking at costs about 3 cents a page to print… obviously, both amounts are (on average) more than what it actually costs me to print. I tell him we’re just looking and we’re getting ready to move, thinking he would get the hint that we’re not buying today, and to leave me the hell alone.

Instead of walking away, he suggests that we buy a $399.99 printer!!

Needless to say, I will no longer be making printer purchases in-store; instead, I’ll be going to the good ol’ rainforest of Amazon.com.

One thing I eat regularly, or at least tried to early regularly up until about a month ago, was the Tostino’ Totino’s ”Crispy N’ Tasty” Pepperoni Pizza… (not the Classic Pepperoni!) My local grocer, Calandro’s, stopped carrying them after they were recalled in November of last year, so I have to make the trek out to my local Port Allen Wal-Mart to buy these wonderful gifts from the folks at General Mills.

Well, Jennie was there about a month ago (incidentally, around the time food stamps are disbursed by the state), and went to the frozen food aisle to find absolutely not a single Tostino’s Totino’s Pepperoni pizza left. Sure, they had plenty of Hamburger (disgusting), Sausage (equally disgusting), Cheese (boring), and Classic Pepperoni (if I wanted real pepperoni, I would pay $5 for a pizza) left. She picked up a $5 Red Baron pizza and headed to the check-out counter.

She gets up to checkout counter, and gets behind a rather large woman, with an obese child in the buggy, paying with a Louisiana Purchase card… and she has anywhere from 50-75 Tostino’s Totino’s Pepperoni Pizzas in the cart!! She took every single pizza!!!

And ever since that day, there has not been a single Tostino’s Totino’s Pepperoni pizza in the freezer when we go to Wal-Mart. I’m thinking about just sticking a self made sign there that says “LIMIT ONE PER CUSTOMER,” since Wally World seems content about not doing anything about it.

I was at work today, captioning Professor Trahan’s family law class over at LSU, when I got a call from Jennie, which went something like this:

Tony! You know the naked girls next door? They’ve got one of those PODS things – Portable On Demand Storage – and they’re trying to put it in their driveway but its not fitting. The guy’s blocking our driveway and I can’t get out to go to work. They tried putting it in our driveway, but I ran out there and stopped them… I left with Ariane, so get home soon just in case they try it again! Love you!

Ugh… so I get home and I notice their POD is in front of their house, facing Europe St., on the sidewalk and city’s right of way. They totally destroyed a tree in front of the house with the POD… yes… they put the POD on TOP of a tree and SQUISHED IT.

These people REALLY piss me off. Their house has been raided by state police, they have a band over there at least twice a week practicing, they park on their neighbor’s lawn, they don’t maintain their yard (the grass is about 3 feet high), and rather than being responsible pet owners and walking their animals, they just let them out to roam the street (Their beautiful black lab got lost a couple of weeks ago, and has not been seen since).

Not to mention they leave their garbage can in the sidewalk, which blocks my view when backing out of the driveway – turning every trip out of the house into a SUICIDE MISSION since people come down our street at 50-70MPH (in a 25MPH zone).

They’re trashing up the fucking place. I live in a nice neighborhood (Beauregard Town) and all of our neighbors have historic homes, which they maintain and take care of. I’ve tried calling city government and 311 – they won’t do anything. I’m not even going to bother with my council woman (update: I did email her, lets see if she emails me back)

I believe it would be against the Code of Professional Conduct to go over there and burn down the house, so that option is out. They have also committed no crimes that I know of other than failing to maintain their lawn according to city ordinance and blocking the sidewalk – which no law enforcement agency is going to send somebody out for. Anybody have any ideas how I should handle this situation?