the new supermarket opened today. i checked it out. much of new york complains about its supermarkets closing, or being generally scarce, but around here it’s the opposite. the store that opened today takes up a space once occupied by a pretty sketchy grocery store. that place was called Pioneer when it closed, but it had changed names several times over in the preceding years. it always stood out in my mind as the only grocery store i’ve ever seen where customers had to check their bags with security before being allowed in. that may have been the defining moment in my decision to never enter a retail place that confiscated my belongings as a condition of entry. i gave up on CompUSA, Tower Records, Circuit City, The Strand, and even the august New York Public Library (main branch). All these places expected visitors to turn over their possessions upon entry while offering not even the slightest guarantee that said belongings will be properly taken care of or secured. these bags and items are not being tended to by qualified security personnel (if there even is such a thing) but by whaever store clerk or cashier happens to have nothing to do at the time. i never understood the policy, but not only because i thought it was rude business but because it seemed like such an unneeded liability for the business to assume. a potential lawsuit in every bag.
the new grocery store looks like what it is. nothing extraordinary or distinctive, but perfectly passable.
big deal.
i mailed off my taxes, in 6 envelopes, which includes payments, forms for refunds, and estimated quarterly payments for the current year. i hope i didn’t fuck anything up. i almost forgot to sign the federal and state returns. the post office was shockingly empty on this traditional day of doom. tax day is actually the 18th this year, but i would have thought that a lot of people didn’t know that and made the mad dash to the post office on this day. nothing doing. crickets. the place was very quiet.
i havemostly avoided the post office hte last couple of years. whilst stocking up some old magazines i purchased a number of boxloads of said publications, usually being forced to ship them via USPS for one reason or another. this caused so much aggravation it was unreal. unlike UPS or FedEX, the USPS deliveries often were never even attempted. i watched as USPS delivery trucks stopped outside my apartment building, the delivery guy came to the door and… left a notice. a notice that said “Sorry We Missed You”, this notice left in lieu of even attempting to deliver the freakin’ package. the assumption seems to be that customers will be required to pick up packages in person at the post office.this apparent policy (“apparent” because it is not stated in writing anywhere) assumes a lot, and i for one make every effort to have packages shipped by any carrier other than USPS. i actually imagine that this is their goal, to wean customers off of USPS for parcels, and if that is their goal then they had a complete success with me. in the meantime they claimed to have returned some items to the sender, but the senders who i contacted said they never got anything returned to them.
it’s all so petty, and stupid. such is the life of the sole proprietor/independent doofus. so manythings can go wrong, and on sooome days they all go wrong, but seemingly routine things like package deliveries never seemed like they should be such a hazard, but they are, they are.
i never got around to ordering the RAID today,. amazon prime intervened at the last second, saying i could order it overnight and get it saturday, or order it 2nd day and get it Tuesday. Tuesday? how is Monday not second day if Saturday is overnight? who knows these profound mysteries of the shipping world.
i started in to Ben Katchor’s “The Cardboard Valise,” which looks to show Katchor in top form once again. hteonly dud i know if in his published books is “The Jew of New York,” which went nowhere that i could connect with. i associate Katchor with my first months and years in NYC, and i associate it with the Apology Line, which I discovered at about the same time as Katchor. i think i learned of them both in the same issue of the NYPress.
