Boxcars @boxcars@qoto.org

Yo Tooters. I joined a group. We chatting on Signal.

But they are linking in Signal to Googledocs.

Isn't that like showing up to the secret meeting wearing colorful new wiretaps?

Tooters,

I had the rare chance to speak to a gathering with their undivided attention.

It felt like the naughts when a flip phone might spill from a pouch, glinting in the light of day.

I raised my arms slowly and made eye contact with each person and prepared to speak.

Young faces glowed afresh from sipping thimbles of time. But already some fiend had conditioned them to ignore most of my phonemes. I spoke curtly.

"Get thee to Mastodon." (pause) "Follow me!"

They turned and blinked at each other. My arms lowered, my head bowed. But my eyes were steady and madly wide.

Pixelfed? Lemmy?" I raised voluminous eyebrows. There was no response.

Futile attempts, you say, dear tooter.

But I say--Stay Fast!

(pause)

"Fediverse, Yes?"

"Sup!"
"Sup soon!"

Greetings Tooters:

The shiny object that has mesmerized me today is the #Costco #Teamsters #strike on 1Feb.

This event has been briefly reported on the East coast and more intrepidly reported on the West coast. But this is a two coaster event.

I spoke to one of the middle level retail priests near the great gate and he explained that Costco is good, and all things Costco does is good.

"Surely there will be a strike, near a port that serves many stores, and the trucks will tarry", I replied.

But he was unswayed, saying he had parttime work now, but it was maxed out part time, and his 401K is like a purring cat resting near a roaring hearth.

As it turns out, busy Costco retail temples require several truckloads a day to serve the masses. High priests of Costco, still professing their love of all hungry humanity, especially the hungry ones they pay, haven't given raises to drivers for three years and do not want to discuss the matter further, especially after enjoying banner years 2023 and 2024 and raising membership fees the end of 2024.

Drivers convened a union two months ago to engage the temple on the matter of cost of living increase and fulltime benefits. But the chants filled empty halls.

So I'm wondering what will happen. Do the Costco high priests continue to scoff? Does inventory fall? Do the lower priests prick up their ears? Does humanity get hungrier? Will fulltime be blessed again? Will the East coast notice?

Either way it will be a harbinger of things to come.

Hello Tooters. I'm not having much luck operating this postal system. I have a certified mail document that has gone in a 90 degree direction away from its destination and landed somewhere and stuck there for ten days. The destination is two hours away by car. Are you supposed to spin them before you send them, like a frisbee? And I've got a package that was put into a truck and almost delivered, but then I guess they noticed it wasn't paid for and they updated the tracking from transiting network to insufficient postage. Wow, I thought I guess you really have to be sure them stamps are stuck and so I told the ebay seller the bad news about stamp glue drying out after a week or so. And today I thought I just need someone to talk to, not the autoattendant that only wants my secret cellphone number for their new privacy data contract. However, the downtown busy post office was closed for lunch break at 4pm and paper signs all over the door said the system was down. But I am happy to tell you that my mail doorslot still works great because my squirrel friend delivered himself through the two flaps and ran all around the house, and we laughed and laughed.

Tooters.

The insurance farmer is at the door and says he needs a few more feathers for his bed this quarter.

He is saying he needs a modest increment on the usual four extra feathers.

"That's fine my good fellow, we all need to sleep well", I rejoin. I ask him how many should I pluck for him, noticing the brand new electric Hummer that he drove up in.

"Yes well, to be sure, no less than 25", smiling not unlike a Cheshire cat.

"Goodness, yes. I''ll be right back, just a moment please."

And I gently closed the door. Nailed it shut. And put on the kettle for some tea.

Limiting my viewing time because I've gotten to the point where my soul can't take even the mildest dark turn of events.

So I've resorted to reading National Weather Service's forecast discussion for entertainment. Here's a snippet from tonight's analysis:

°Feels like temperatures real. Feels like temperatures will be in the single digits. Lighter to calm winds will keep these feels like temperatures above Cold Weather Advisory criteria."

I feel ya bro'.

Now you have to check the actual tags on the shelf, which are 'misplaced' in our DC Safeway. San Francisco caught them. Bring your reading glasses! Gonna get worse until more local governments send in their posse. It's just too easy to steal from customers these days. Where's big brother when you need him?

Safeway settled out of court for $5m, and they will someday initiate a pricy accuracy program whereby they pay customers to hold them accountable. Smooth move.

See www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/safeway-to-pay-millions-for-overcharging-customers-alameda-co-da/

Airborne viral transmission risk is easily monitored with cheap handheld CO2 sensors.

Mirv 13 filters and a box fan from Costco is a cheap way of trapping large floating blobs of moisture recently expelled from people's lungs.

Get yourself a handheld co2 monitor and a decent fitting mask.

Make a #CorsiRosethanthal filter box. It's so effing easy.

Share ppm readings at McDs, Starbucks, waiting rooms.

Just had a friend laughed at and labeled a sham science promoter for telling their doctor that his air-tight waiting room with coughing patients was stuck at nearly 3000ppm CO2, whereas 1k ppm is the limit for noninfectious viral safety in the US, and the saner 800ppm in Germany.

Time to kit up, defend yourself if you're going to participate in society, and that means sensor and mask and a box at home.

Kit up and share. You can do it, because it's easy, cheap, and it works.

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.