Worth Its Weight In Gold

Recently, I responded to a complaint on the NextDoor app about a local restaurant whose ice cream machine was apparently broken, and on a sultry July afternoon, many people were frustrated from coming up empty after standing some time in line, waiting for their coveted sweet treats.

Why, said the post's author, did the restaurant not just put up a sign?

This is what I told him (keeping in mind, of course, that I am employed as a matron on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.  My job is to keep clean 29 toilets, 17 mirrors, sinks and the surrounding vanities.  Not to mention 47 windows [77 if I do the outsides], 40 tables, and all the stuff out on the patio):

I feel your pain about the signs, and they should've put them up, but I will say in the workers' defense: sometimes putting up signs is pointless.

Where I work, last Sunday we had to close two of our restaurants and we put up signs saying this at each entrance, but people still walked up to me asking if we were closed.

When I close a.section of the ladirs room to clean it, f I put up two floor signs indicating the closure, alot of times the women will walk right past them -- "I didn't see them", and if I put up 4 or 5 signs and they feel like it, they will just move the signs and walk in anyway.

When I'm washing windows and I'm doing the door windows, people will open the doors and walk right into me.  And I've lost track of how many times I've been hit or almost hit by the automatic doors that people hit the button and open without looking, but if I had a nickel for each time, you and I could both retire.

When I worked in Coffee Paradise, every night when we closed and we pulled the gate, flipped out the closed sign and turned out the lights, there was always some pathetic schnook standing outside watching us clean, asking, "Are you closed?"  Every.  Single.  Night.

Alot of times, it's because people are on their devices, but I will say many times, too, people are just walking around in their own little world.

I have come to realize there's a reason why it is called "paying attention."  True attention is worth its weight in gold.

What Better Way...

To celebrate our Independence Day than to peruse and refamiliarize ourselves with it founding documents, the documents that spell out what it means to be an American?  So, to that end --

https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript

https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/

I do this, y'all, because I talk to so many citizens with opinions on our country past, present and future, who know very little about its history or what we have stood for, the promises of this country, etc.  What good are opinions not based on knowledge?  With the easy availability of these documents to us, there is no good reason for not knowing what they say, and that they are indeed, made living and breathing documents, by us.

May our joy in fireworks only be exceeded by an explosion of understanding.

Happy Independence Day, America!