Things That Make You Go Hmmmmm

I’ve come across several head scratching moments over the last few weeks, so I thought I’d take the time to share some of them.  The most recent came this morning when I drove through Starbucks for a pumpkin spice latte.

Starbucks has this neat iPhone app where you can store your gift cards.  The barista (that’s a fancy name for a young person who dispenses ridiculously high priced coffee drinks) can then scan your phone for payment.  I’ve been reloading an old Starbucks gift card for years so that I didn’t have to pay with cash and wait for change, but I often found myself digging around in my purse to find which compartment I had dropped it into after the last swipe.  The iPhone app was a chance to further simplify my life.

Until today, that is.  When I got to the drive thru window, I was told that they could not scan my phone.  It seems that Starbucks has been sued by customers who have dropped and damaged their phones when they hold them out the window to be scanned.  So much for that great idea.

Head scratcher #2.  My recent work schedule has lately taken me to parts of the greater Birmingham area where I don’t normally travel at 7:30 in the morning.  On Thursday I was on Shades Creek Parkway about 7:15.  For those of you who are not familiar with Birmingham, Shades Creek Parkway, which becomes Lakeshore Drive, is a busy link between Highway 280 and I-65 and even points further west.

At 7:15 a.m. traffic heading west from 280 toward I-65 is heavy but moving steadily in both lanes.  But not this past Thursday, which happened to be garbage pick up day.  Most people think of Shades Creek Parkway as the home of Brookwood Mall, Samford University and Southern Living.  However, people also live along Shades Creek Parkway, and some of them evidently have earned the privilege of having their garbage picked up at their back door.

Unfortunately, I was in the right hand lane, just behind the garbage truck.  Every few feet the truck would stop, and the garbage man would run up the driveway to someone’s door.  Sometimes he would return with a sack or two, which he would toss into the truck, and sometimes he would return empty handed.  The whole process was painfully slow, and none of us in the right lane could shift to the left lane because of the steady stream of traffic.  I guess if you travel this route on a daily basis, you know when garbage day is, and you steer clear of the right lane.

And finally, there’s the group I will call The Mom Brigade.  This is a group of moms who live in Liberty Park.  Each day they transport their children about three blocks to and from the elementary and middle schools in golf carts.

I’ve never seen anything like it.  A couple of weeks ago I was at a job site in Liberty Park and watched a steady stream of mom-driven golf carts of all shapes and sizes pass down a residential street lined with a perfectly good sidewalk.

Back in my day, if you lived within three blocks of the school, you walked.  And it was uphill both ways!!