Monthly Archives: June 2018

The Intriguing Awareness of “Perspective Shifting”

Perspective Shift, Self-Awareness

I knew one day I’d look back a the “old me” with a new lens, but I didn’t think I’d witness the actual shift of old me to newer me.

At first, I didn’t think I learned much today, but I think it’s because it’s all happening right before my eyes, and it all relates to how my perspective is shifting on so many things.

Perspective Shift #1

I took my kids to the zoo today. For anyone that lives in my county, you can get free admission to the zoo on Mondays. I used to avoid the zoo like the plague on Mondays. A zoo crowded with poor people. No thanks.

Guess what? It’s Monday. My kids are already going stir crazy from being home together. And its a lovely sunny day. Oh, and we’re currently the poorest we’ve ever been, well, ever. So I took my kids to the free zoo. We ran into my son’s babysitter, and she made a comment about the crowded zoo “on a Monday.” Which meant: “the crowded zoo full of poor questionable walks of life”.

I had no words. I normally would have nodded with her in agreement and laughed. Not today. Today I was speechless because I was one of those people and I wasn’t the type of person I thought of when it came to Free Zoo Mondays. I now saw this as an opportunity rather than an annoyance.

Perspective Shift #2

Tomorrow is bulk trash day around here in the city. I never used to pay much attention to it. I’ve always known you can put out extra trash once a month, and I’ve taken advantage of it here and there, but I’ve been looking forward to it lately. I’ve had more time on my hands to clean out old stuff, and I can’t help but want to purge crap that has been in my way for more than 10 years.

I’ve had a half broken table and four chairs (from the 1970s) in my basement collecting dust for more than a decade. The table and chairs aren’t even mine – they were given to me from a roommate I lived with right after college. I didn’t have a table and chairs when I moved out, so she just let me take it. They are so ugly, but they were functional and I was broke.

They followed me to my “adult” house after I got married. I used the table to fold laundry on in the basement, and the chairs sometimes served as drying racks back in the day when I used to buy clothes that were in no way tumble dry friendly.

As I lugged the chairs out to the curb, a nosy neighbor lady asked me why I was getting rid of the chairs. She said “What if you have people over and need extra seating?”

Um, no. I have plenty of seating. In fact, I have too much.

I used to get annoyed by this lady. In the past, I may have just answered “No,” and then been agitated about her questioning me. Today I smiled and offered her first dibs on the chairs if she wanted them. She declined. That is what I thought. I went about my business disposing of the broken garden hose wheel that has been uselessly laying in my driveway.

I now actually love that she is nosy – her nosiness once scared off some people attempting to break into my garage. I’ve embraced her nosiness as a gift ever since.

Perspective Shift #3

As I rolled out the recycle bin to the curb, the trash pickers appeared. These folks cherish the night before bulk trash day like Christmas Eve. They make their rounds in their rickety old pick-up trucks and they have no shame. I used to be both perplexed and annoyed by the trash pickers. Like why in the hell would anyone want to pick up someone else’s garbage off the street?

I now love these guys. You know why? 1) They are creative souls that will figure out how to either sell or reuse whatever it is that they pick up, and 2) They enable me to put out more extra trash than the city allows. You get to set out up to three extra items. If they pick up even one of those items, I can get rid of more of my junk!

Those trash pickers picked up all four chairs within five minutes and they were off. I thanked them. I got to thank them! Thank you for taking my junk!

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. 

This whole day went by and I didn’t I didn’t think I learned anything. But I’m realizing that my whole perspective is shifting in a different direction on many things right in front of me.

New perspectives are like little lights that go off and you see more of what you couldn’t before. It’s very intriguing.

Stifle Me Not

Encounter with an Honest Car Salesman

Honesty

I went to a car dealership today to try to trade in my car and downsize to something simpler. Downsize the payment, downsize the gas consumption, and just downsize another piece of my life to make it a little bit easier.

I walked into the dealership and shook hands with an older gentleman, who immediately informed me that he had been working there for 15 years and he had been in this line of work for 33 years. He asked for my name, asked if I had ever purchased a car there before (I had), and he looked up the salesperson that had previously helped me at that dealership 12 years ago.

I cringed. That salesperson was still there. I remember salesperson #1 very well because he did not show me the level of respect that he should have. At the time, I was looking to purchase a brand new car and my boyfriend (my now husband) was with me, and he had no part in the purchase of the car. He was just there to be with me. Salesperson #1 kept directing any conversation about the car and finances toward my boyfriend. My boyfriend even said “I am not paying for this car at all, it’s all her.” And he just kept talking to “the man”.

Salesperson #1 kept me waiting for long periods of time while he would go into the back to “check on something” with numbers. He tried to tell me that my payment would have to be one amount when I definitely knew that it was higher than it needed to be. I finally told him I would have to switch to a lower priced model or look elsewhere. He came around and got me into the car that I wanted for the price that I wanted. I have not been a fan of car shopping since then.

Salesperson #1 was not impossible, but he was a challenge. Car salesmen have a reputation for a reason, right? And he seemed to live up to the stereotype. But today, I was not walking into the dealership with a big fight in me. I just wanted to simplify things.

Luckily, salesperson #1 was not available. I was so relieved that I was going to stick with salesperson #2.

I immediately informed salesperson #2 that I wasn’t sure if we could make a deal work today due to the negative equity on my car. I did my homework in advance and handed him all of the numbers. He was impressed. I told him I didn’t want to waste his time, and I’d appreciate if he could just be up front with me if he couldn’t get it to work out right now.

We chatted as he entered numbers into the computer. He was a jovial guy. He put a list of used cars in front of me and started to using some selling techniques as I browsed the list. Before moving forward, I reiterated that I thought the negative equity could be an issue and agreed to get my car appraised before going any further in the process.

He left to have my car appraised, but he wasn’t gone long enough for it to have happened. He returned about two minutes later and flopped the keys down on the table as he spewed honest facts and figures and he had sad eyes. It wasn’t what I wanted to hear.

It took me a minute to realize that he was  doing exactly as I had asked. He couldn’t make it work, so he wasn’t wasting time with the appraisal, he knew what the outcome would be after all of his experience and the numbers I had given him.  The negative equity would be a problem.

I shook his hand and thanked him. It didn’t work out the way that I hoped, but I still have my nice car that I wasn’t excited about parting with right now. I also still have a hefty monthly payment (sigh).

I drove away numb and wondering why I couldn’t make this one thing work, but very appreciative that he spared me hours of sitting in the dealership (like I’ve done in the past) only to have the same outcome. All I could think is that maybe there is a reason and it’s just not obvious yet. Or maybe there’s no reason at all. Maybe sometimes things just don’t work out.

What I did learn today is that I encountered an honest car salesmen. I asked for honesty and he gave it to me. That doesn’t mean I had to like it.

Stifle Me Not

Thank You Lady at ALDI

Hope

I’ve been going to ALDI lately. When my grandmother was alive and still healthy enough to do her own grocery shopping, she used to tell me about the great deals she would find at ALDI. Then a few years later, my mom morphed into my grandma and she would tell me how much she loved shopping there too.

I didn’t get it. I was self-absorbed and in my own little bubble of life. Saving money wasn’t a priority for me – I had plenty. I wasn’t wealthy at all, but I was well off enough that I didn’t need pinch every penny or bother with grocery store hopping just to find “good deals”. I could easily splurge $200 / week at a non-ALDI supermarket and come home with way fewer items. I was fine, I didn’t need to save on groceries.

Fast forward to this year – this one heck of a year – and ALDI is my favorite place to make the most out of $50. I’m no longer judgmental about people that go to places like ALDI. If you would have asked me if I judged before, I would have completely denied it. Now, in the shoes of someone that is carefully watching their expenses, I get it.

I GET IT.

Now onto the real reason why I started rambling — the lady at ALDI. First I have to back-up to the first lady that even got me noticing his kind of thing. When you go to ALDI, the carts are lined up right outside of the store. You must put a quarter in to release the cart. It’s okay though, you simply get your quarter back when you return the cart. This turns into an interesting human experiment to observe in the parking lot.

When you retrieve a cart, there’s almost always someone returning their cart too. Sometimes people wait patiently for one another to retrieve or return a cart. Sometimes impatiently. Sometimes a person that is returning a cart will hand off the cart to another person in exchange for their quarter. Others race to the carts to avoid the cart and quarter confrontation (this is pretty funny to watch).

And sometimes, like I witnessed a few weeks ago, someone will hand off their cart and refuse to take the quarter from the next person. A pay it forward kind of event.

I saw a lady do this and say just that to another person. She said “Here you go, no need for the quarter, just pay it forward.” I was like wow, things like that really happen.

And so I wanted to try doing the same when I came out of the store, but oddly enough there was no around to take my cart so that I could tell them to pay it forward. Darn it.

So the next time I went to ALDI, I did pay it forward and refused the quarter as I handed my cart to a man who looked astonished at what I had just done. He almost looked angry that I didn’t accept is quarter. I briskly walked away and told him it was okay as he was waving his quarter at me. I wasn’t trying to get a good karma quarter back, I just wanted to try it. Just wanted to spread some good will.

The next time I went to ALDI, I did it again. It felt good to do something nice, it wasn’t about handing out free quarters. I wasn’t shocked that I went shopping for weeks and didn’t get a “free” cart from a stranger not concerned about a quarter, but I did notice.

And then last night, I went to ALDI, and as I went to get my cart (with my quarter in hand), a woman handed me her cart and politely refused my quarter. I smiled, graciously thanked her, and went about my grocery shopping.

I want to thank that woman, not just for the free cart and saving me a quarter, but for making me smile and spreading positive vibes in the middle of the hot parking lot. And when I returned my cart, there was no one around, and I got my quarter back.

What goes around does come around. I learned that small gestures to make a difference, on the giving end and the receiving end. It may take time, but it happens.

And thank you mom and grandma, you were right about the big savings at ALDI.

Stifle Me Not

(By the way, I’m totally not being paid to endorse ALDI, I just love it there.)