Just Everyday Life in Florida

My day began by finding my neighbor (a young man) outside his door, talking on his phone, in his underwear!

What could I do but slowly creep past him to take the dog down to pee and pretend it wasn't all that weird of a thing to see.  

Midday we had errands to run so we decided to have some lunch at Steak n Shake.  As is usual, we walked in the door and proceeded to be completely ignored - as did the 15 people in front of us.  There are at least 50 tables in this place and only about 20 of them were being used but, time after time, we were passed by and ignored by every single employee there!  The family of 6 in front of us turned and walked out - and I wasn't going to be far behind.  

Finally, a young man walked up to the group in the front of us and offered to seat them  Not apologizing or offering any explanation as to why it took over 10 minutes for anyone to even acknowledge we were there.  

I don't often say anything but, as I said, this is normal and happens a lot when go there.  We've never waited 10 minutes before but it is usual to wait up to 5 minutes before anyone even approaches us.    So I walked up to this poor young man and told him *paraphrased* "we come here often"..."we always have to wait to be acknowledged"... "it's poor business practice"..."you lose business" 

And this young man was so polite and stood there and apologized...and so did I.  I realize its not his fault.  He then proceeded to wait on us.  And I gave him a huge tip.  Not sure if their business practices will change but when we left, they had a hostess seating people and I have NEVER seen a hostess there before.  

After eating we stopped by the Millennia Mall.  Zack's phone started acting up this morning- basically a black screen saying it was installing updates but after 8 hours the process was still at 0%.  After driving around for 10 minutes looking for a parking space -ANY parking space AT ALL (no joke), we finally found one and headed in.  Of course the mall was packed and the T Mobile store was at the opposite end of the mall...so, yeah,  we dodged between people having only one goal in mind.  

We walked into the store and, of course, were approached by an overzealous worker who would, no doubt, try to get me to buy into a new plan or purchase new phones...so I diffused him of this notion immediately.  He asked if we had tried to restart the phone, which I had but it would not turn off.  So he opened the phone, took the battery out, put the battery back in, and handed the phone back to us in working order.  And we walked out of there feeling like complete idiots looking at each other and saying, "why didn't we think of doing that?"

So back in the car, we made our way across the street to Target to get some groceries.  A mile drive that took over 10 minutes #Orlandotraffic.  We walked into Target dodging raindrops in the sun #Orlandoweather.  

On the way home, I got behind a tourist who decided to slow down and put his right directional on - when there was NO WHERE to turn right for at least two miles.  All the while I am screaming from inside my car, "there is no where to turn right.  THERE IS NO WHERE TO TURN RIGHT!" This unnecessary slow down, of course, led me to miss the green light. OY! 

And that was my day.