Pat Down, Fraud Alert, Jean Jackets, Automatic Toilets and Siri–A Few Things I Encountered Last Week

Sep 30, 2013

I just got home from a short trip to see family and beyond and as always there are stories.  It is what makes my life my life.  I can’t make some of this stuff up, that is for sure.  A quick synopsis of a few things that I encountered during my week away.

• TSA has been unusually friendly to me the past few trips.  I know they are doing their jobs and I certainly would not want to have to go through what they experience
• much of the time.  Daily encounters with people who are not versed in how to successfully navigate the TSA procedures must certainly try their patience but recently I have had only positive experiences with them.  Perhaps it is because I try to engage them when I pass through but the past couple experiences have actually made me laugh.   When I walked through the detector the female attendant told me she had to pat down my stomach.  She did and I kind of laughed and told her it was “just fat”.  She muttered something about buttons but since I had none on any of my clothing items that day I can only imagine that what the machine detected was weirdly shaped fat cells.  The last time I triggered something was in Salt Lake City when she had to “pat down my beading” on my shirt.  (See below)
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• We went to Target to pick up a few things for Aaron’s place and as we were checking out I had a nice conversation with the cashier—a young girl who was quite personable.  I slid my card, did all the usual things for the transaction and then she kind of covered up the screen and whispered to me that my card was declined.  She was being so careful to not draw attention to it and it was so sweet—–I told her I was clueless why it was not accepting it but whipped out my debit card and went on with the purchase.  I apologized and she was all apologetic to me and said  “I bet it because you are traveling!”   What I didn’t hear was my phone going off in my purse with both texts and calls from American Express Fraud Alert trying to verify my purchases were valid.   What alerted it?  Possible the rental car in Pennsylvania, the small purchases in Ohio, and then most likely the kickers were the purchases at Dicks and Target in North Carolina all within a short span of time.   Thank you, American Express, and thank you to that sweet cashier who was trying to not make me feel like a deadbeat!
• Jean Jackets or Denim Jackets are one of my favorite items to take when traveling because they are so versatile.  They always seem to be appropriate and just the right weight for planes and for changing fall weather.  That is until my son tweeted a picture out stating that “Mom is rocking a jean jacket” which indicated that it was not cool.  Well…..I did an informal poll on Facebook and guess what?  Women young and old both like them.  So there.  My son (and the other son  chimed in and said that the girls at Columbia rocked them but he did not necessarily condone them) has had to reconsider his stance on jean jackets on Mom.  
• Everyplace you go these days there are automatic toilets that do the flushing for you without you having to do a thing. Sometimes they flush at inconvenient times but most often they do their job.  Occasionally there is the rare malfunction when they do not flush after the “deposit is made” to put it delicately.  One of my pet peeves is when someone leaves the stall without making sure that their deposit has flushed.  There is ALWAYS a little button to poke if the toilet does not do what it is supposed to do.  There is no excuse for non -flushed toilets.  It ticks me off to discover one.  Why don’t people take the initiative to do the obvious?   Any thoughts?
• Finally —I always like to give thanks where thanks is due.  I asked my wonderful Siri on my phone a question and she came back with some great resources for me to find the answer.  I thanked her and she graciously answered me.  The funny thing is that this has always been something that I have said so maybe Siri is an extension of me after all!
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• Don’t forget to come back tomorrow for a Comments for a Cause wrap up and reveal!