The Pool and Sneakers

Yesterday I took John to the apartment pool for the first time of the season, wearing a cute swim outfit his Grandmom bought him. Unlike last summer when John was too young to know better, this time he was very cautious about the water. He would sit on the edge, bottom dry with feet in the water. I got him down one step farther and he didn't like that. Then he'd run around outside the pool before we'd try again. The only time he was laughing was when we found a volleyball: he sat on the edge of the pool and I stood in the water eight inches away from him and we tossed the ball back and forth. I couldn't take any good photos because I was always having to keep one hand on John, lest he run right into the pool.

Happy Monthday to John! He is eighteen months old today. I bought him his first sneakers a few days ago and, not expecting much success, put them on him today. He just stood up and began running around like an expert.

I had a customer no-service experience today at the Staples store behind our apartment. I walked in and scanned my eyes through the big store looking for the section containing CDs. I walked half the store before asking an associate for help. The woman was chewing gum as she worked. "Excuse me, ma'am? Where can I find the paper slipcovers for CDs?"

" With the CDs."

"And where would those be?"

"Across the store." I looked across the warehouse-sized store. The associated sighed audibly and said, "I'll show you."

After that I went to the shipping center and asked for help from someone else. "Excuse me, ma'am? Is this where I ship packages?"

"Yes."

"Is it self-service?"

"Yes."

"Well, I might need your help because I've never done it before."

"It's really self-explanatory." And then she walked away. So I went through the computer screens, typing in all the data for my three packages. Then it called for a password, so I called to the woman for help. She paged another associate and the original gum-chewing woman came over. She then informed me that they ship only through UPS and UPS does not ship to P.O. Boxes, for which two of my packages were destined. I wondered inside how a sophisticated computer program could not have informed me of that when I typed in P.O. Box addresses. Then the third package was going to cost $10 at UPS instead of $2.87 at USPS, so I took all three packages with me and left. What an experience!

In other news, yesterday I let John watch his potty video several times, then I turned everything off. I accidentally left the remote controls within reach. John found them, turned on the television with one remote, turned on the stereo with another remote, and pushed play so the potty video began playing. It was downright eerie.