Boxcars @boxcars@qoto.org

Tooters, #traderjoes is helping me with my elocution!

For a week now there are no eggs in the egg cooler, not even the 5dollar dozen. There's a multicolored missive taped to the cooler handwritten in block letters explaining that distribution is a troublesome affair.

At check out, one of the fifteen tellers is obligated to ask me if I found everything.

My primary reason for the visit is the $2.99 egg carton, which is on the low side of our DC retail range. My cake needs eggs. Now, I know many of you are thinking to start my speech to the cashiers with a yoke. But I'm trying to raise my game.

Initially, I stated the obvious as a means to draw in the listener, but my cashier remains silent and detached. I've tried rhetorical questions but they fail to provoke wonder. So now, I'm attempting more eye contact and personal questions.

Sometimes my cashier is wearing a mask so maybe somthing about bird flu will do. "How do you feel about H5N1?" Surely this would knit undiscovered eggs and unlayed eggs to these undistributed eggs that were unfindable. But it has not.

"Would you like your receipt?", they ask, rejecting my polemic foray into the empty egg cooler.

I ponder. This is only temporary, this empty egg cooler, and I'll return to check again for eggs, purchase other items.

Goodbye saxophone nailed to the wall, goodbye cashier friends, goodbye empty egg cooler.

It was fun.

Dearest Tooters: Today #amtrak and I separated, ok me and a whole trainload of megalopolis minions. An electrical substation exploded, and a nearby warehouse inexplicably caught fire in the Bronx too close to the tracks. So they stopped the northeast regional at Old Saybrook and said a brushfire has gnawed through trainwires like a giant fiery rat and amtrak wants you off the train. Go now, get on that lesser commuter train and good luck. So we did.

Then I got emails from my train. Emails about the train traveling joyfully through New Haven like nothing was wrong. Here are all our stops. Love and Kisses, 137. Numbers as petnames--it's a train thing. Wait, so we didn't break up? I could have stayed with dear 137? I was perplexed.

At this point, I had already moved on to a commuter train, something to carry me to a real mode of transportation later down the line. There I helped several less firm people, I mean infirm. And we eventually got to New Haven.

And we did the whole yanking and carrying luggage in upward directions thing again in a massive group, that I'm sure lemmings did before they evolved into creatures without luggage. I mean if you going to fling yourself off a great height, evolution must have said, oh veh, stop with the luggage already. But this raised platform had a train and so we flung ourselves into a Metroline North coach instead. We left a bunch of people behind, not sure why. Jump I thought, dont be left behind! Two hours later we arrived to the city of New York.

New York has several stations and we arrived at the one without any knowledge of amtrak tickets, reservations, or trains. Redhats are scarce of course and elevators are practically hidden. But a kind man in a hardhat gave us a careful rundown of the best way to get to Penn Station in three acts as only a true New Yorker can convey. My british accented elder was having none of it, 'Elevator! We asked where is the elevator!°

But I knew that in the bowels of any New York station we had what we needed to get to the shuttle to Penn Station. Unfortunately, the last shuttle had just left, we found out minutes later after a left, a hill. another left and a right.. Surely there were no hard feelings with 137.But now I was worried, this breakup was not really over. There would be regret, and wishful thinking and more tugging luggage uphill.

We got to the line of sleek yellow cabs, and I waved goodbye to me elderly friends and I walked to Penn Station. Phew. Maybe should have taken a cab. But I needed the air and the walk.

it's now many hours later, actually the next day, after nearly an hour with a ticketing counter person. I have a facsimile of a ticket which is a morass of teletype info that describes what would be on a ticket. but really isn't a ticket, and a note in thick red sharpie that the printer wasn't working and please, take pity, let this person on the train. Truly I have hit bottom, and I'm sorry amtrak 137, was it something I said?

Tooters, I am teaching myself to knit with kabob skewers and Ace Hardware string because long bike rides are too exhausting as a pre-election coping mechanism.

However, after inadvertently hearing older and wiser #cspan callers explain they detest the other party and don't know for whom they voted for last time, I have resolved to do better. So now I'm using bottlerocket sticks and said string to knit, so I will stay warm in my new FEMA camp home.

Holy Cow Tooters! My ballot is in, and soon our three electoral votes will be thown onto the pile to be enshrined in history or burned to the ground. Going to self-medicate with long bike rides and teaching until the people with lighters reveal themselves.

"Your request for Sidewalk Repair has been received [...] Your request is expected to be completed on or about 10/24/2025 (SLA: 270 Business Days)."

Stop yer whining, in 270 days you'll be complaining somebody covered up yer hole!

Tooters, our after-school program here in the heart of Washington DC has started again. For quite a few years now we've been able to teach Kung Fu, Lion Dance, Dragon Dance to DC kids at super low cost to parents.The kids learn how to train, stay healthy and safe, and pick up drumming skills on Chinese Thunder drums, as well as African Djembe drums-not seen here in this pic. While they do this, they impart solid human qualities on each other. We help, but they do the heavy lifting themselves. I'd love to max out attendance this school year. Mention us, will you, if you know kids or parents in our city? https://www.jowga.org

Tooters, Today I was scanned before entry to #Costco. The new face of near retail shopping is a masked employee carrying a gun sized scanner. One staffer helps you understand the pose you need to take, hand raised, barcode facing outward, wait, and ok, you're cleared to enter the warehouse. There is absolutely nothing to worry about here as Costco verifies and records your identity card, timestamps your entry to the images caught on cameras. But remember your rights for a safe and enjoyable near-retail shopping experience: do not answer questions, ask if you are free to go, and if you are detained, ask for legal representation. A judge will see you at the end to verify a successful and proper shopping experience.

I was rewarded with pushbaok from staff when I pointed out the apples that were in the sale bin area had no price.

They didn't threaten me with concrete galoshes but there were some unpleasantries. These Cosmic Crisp apples were in the sale bin for $1.49/lb. a few days ago. Same apples, same bin location, pretty sure now they were not fresher, with no price shown right inside the door with other produce on sale, and now they were just shy of $5 per apple.

Retail conjob or just forgot to put out the unusually large markup price signs? This is the store with the apples that go on sale, with a sale price displayed but the register charges the full retail price.

Manager indicated trouble with staffing, so that $1.49 apples became $4.99 apples. I waited to see a price displayed, which is when things got testy. No price was displayed while I was there.

You may ask, why am I tooting this when murder and mahem is de rigueur?

Because when simple age old human interaction becomes con-like, we have a moral obligation to make it straight. Otherwise, hell starts to break loose. Just make it straight.

Egg drama hatched at the #Costco cooler yesterday.

Pristine polypakked 21cent eggs had been flying towards the local full retail price of 0.27 and reached 0.25 after a few weeks.

And next to the pallets of two dozen paks were two pallets of six dozen homebrew packages of pressed cardboard and cling wrap.

Unfortunately the Che Guevara paks had no price posted but the people snapped up the hefty egg agglomerations anyway, whispering to themselves, 'Trust in Costco'.

Later I prostrated myself at the manager's altar, awaiting a sign of the price. As warehouse priests passed me in their vestiments and went on to their near retail duties I heard a voice... thirteen ninety nine. It was true. Trust in Costco.

Hi Tooters, I was out rolling the dice while food shopping again.

I'm back to cash because I rolled poorly.

Low price tier of a dozen Lucerne eggs had price mismatch. This high volume Safeway consistently overcharges at the checkout now. So using cash is just faster-easier to get my money back at the service desk.

A week ago in another part of the USA I was given the wrong box of repair parts--went back and it was so annoying to do the chargeback I decided to go back to cash. Also, chargebacks cost the biz money.

Few day ago, Small Food Retailer really messed up the sales again and I was having trouble with the card reader and was distracted. Had to go back next day to get my money.

They returned my misbegotten money as a glass milk bottle return, eliminating their potential chargeback, and thus screwing up their accounting and bottle inventory because they are unable to charge posted prices.

Tooters, now that we've prepped the Mastodon room, it's time to sidle up to our local reporters and suggest the outrage money machine is a waste of their professional time. Let's introduce ourselves and chat with them on we got started on the Fediverse. This is our superpower and now we smile and flex.

My #costco self-checkout burned itself out. They took it away after probably the upteenth manager meeting on self-checkout. First it was indeed self-checkout. Then there was a minder at each station. After that a checker checked you out, the notion of self removed from the task of checkout. Self never came back, and the checkers had to initial the receipt like it was a work of art. Then that stopped and higher ups checked badges while you stood in line, posing the question are you who you pretend to be? Self was now in complete doubt. Chaos crept in. One dark day I was accused of line cutting, and was about to put up my dukes while insisting to my accuser to just go ahead. And so he did, cursing all the way to the regular checkout off to the left. Another day I saw a manager wrangling with a person pushing tons of food towards the self-checkout. "sir, SIr! There is a line!" No it wasn't me again. Some days there were two lines. Other days there was just one line for the six stations. And now it's all gone. When I went before the judge to plead my case of self- and full-purchasing, I asked about the self-checkout, waiting for him to count my four items. "You know, it's not just us, they're shutting them down all over. Too many problems."

good evening tooters. I'm rolling down the east coast on #Amtrak 's night owl #northeastregional. co2 level in this quiet car is 1231ppm which is borderline acceptable indoors but casts aspersions on the breezy, white noise making vents that run the length of the coach. Wondering if the new trains to go into service in October will lower CO2 below 1000. This is the quiet car not even half full. We're mostly small, barely moving mouselike creatures. The co2 monitor blasted an ear shreiking alarm, so I jammed it between my legs trying to hold down the off button. Off buttons are now on buttons so sometimes one is not sure if one is getting off, or turning on. It wasn't a good look with my hands between my legs. I'm expecting to be escorted out of the quiet coach shortly.

Another local food retailer and I are trying to get a price posted for a bottle of juice. My second attempt the next week yielded some insight, at least with this grocer. Lack of staff, said the manager, as the checkout and I snagged him at the bustling, fully staffed checkout stations. Also, he replied they have not seen city inspectors checking that prices are posted and accurate, for years. If they can't post a price esp. after they raised the mystery price, after being flagged twice over two weeks, I'd have to say raising prices and not posting them is now a profitable business practice.

Heads up DC cyclists. Two days in a row I'm getting different youngsters telling me to hand over my ride in the middle of my trip. It's just a short conversation for now. Hoping this is not a trend going into summer.

Tooters, I spent some relaxing time on the Northeast Regional which is a train. During my stay, sniffling, coughing, hacking up phlegm ongoing all around me. Even the coach got in on it with excessive braking outside NYC causing a delightful wafting of burning oil in the coach air. Conductor and friend ran towards the whistle blowing engine. Me in my snuggly soft N95 chillin' as their two way radios exclaiming, 'well it's off the engine now'.

Saved this sprig from some on-sale kale. Put it in water with the rooting avocado pit. Newly constructed roots reach out. "Hungry", I hear the stalk whispering. I got you little friend.

I can't stop thinking about Epub.

Maybe if I just search Mastodon for Epub... [1 hour later]

Honey, I'm going out to Twitter to pick up some Epub. Be right back.