The Great Northern California Corn Shortage: The Beginning

 

 

Honestly?  I don't know what's going on.

I guess I could blame it on something if I really wanted to get into a conspiracy theory frame of mind.  I could blame the new COVID variant, or Trump.  The overwhelming proliferation of home repair shows or the bevy of medication television ads.  Climate change.  Any number of things could be fair game.  I mean, the list is potentially endless.

What am I talking about?  I'll tell you what I'm talking about.  Corn.  Sweet corn, specifically.  And, more exactingly, sweet corn right here in Northern California.

You see ... last week? It was 10 for $1 at the local grocer.  Grab as much as you want.  10?  20?  A couple cases?  No matter, knock yourself out.  It's all for the taking, corn o'plenty.  It was almost a corn free-for-all.

This week?  It was a different story completely.  This week (and the sale ended this Tuesday past) corn was 4 for $1, limit 4 items.  Four measly ears of corn, take it or leave it.  What the hell happened ... !??

The brakes got put on the cornucopia, such that it was.  That party got cut short.  Those halcyon days of maize got the kybosh put down, chop chop.  The grain got grounded.

And it's all the public's fault.  Thanks, public.  Thanks a lot.  You went kernel crazy and now we're going to be paying for it.  Literally.  And with conditions.

Today, if you want your fiber, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants courtesy of that staple corn you're going to be paying a lot more for it.  Because the buying public succumbed to the frenzy of 10 ears for a buck.  10 ears weren't enough.  You needed more than enough, you greedy bastards.

And so, here we go.  Thrust right into the throes of The Great Northern California Corn Shortage: The Beginning. 

And, if you haven't felt the pinch to date, you're going to experience it first hand in the coming days.

Courtesy of the greedy public who decided it needed more ears than it knows what to do with ...

 

.......... Ruprecht ( STOP the greed)

For God's Sake ... We Need To Reorder Pepper RIGHT NOW ... !!!

I really like pepper.

And I really love fresh ground pepper.

Fresh cracked pepper on a turkey or a tuna sandwich, good stuff.  Pepper, along with other condiments, makes the omelet for me.  Fresh, fruity pepper on a perfectly cooked steak ... nothing better.

The smell of it, the pungent aroma of it when its newly ground from a mill, gets the 'ole taste buds salivating.  Goes without saying I use it in a majority of my recipes. And liberally.

Regular table pepper (when I can't get the freshly ground stuff) is a necessity at a meal.  Even in a fast food joint, I pepper where it's appropriate.  French fries, for example.  Curiously (or, maybe, not so much) I might use more pepper on my fries than I do salt.

Which is exactly the case while dining at The Melt in Folsom recently.  I nabbed a couple packets of pepper to spread on my order of fries and happily began partaking.

In front of me were a couple of unused packets of pepper and I looked them over while eating ... and noticed something rather curious ...

See the photo above?  Take a look at the top packet and, in particular, the following wording printed on it: "reorder #4043295."

Odd, I thought.  I mean ... think about it a moment:  When Melt needs more pepper, think they pick up the errant packlet out of a box of many and look for the order number on it in order to acquire more?  Or do you think they already have some sort of form available to resupply more?  Don't you think that's a bit odd?

You don't have a reorder number on the bottom of your favorite shoes so when they begin to wear out you can easily requisition another pair, right?  You don't find any sort of identification anywhere in you car stating "To get another, here's the send off number to make it easier for you! You're welcome!"  There's nothing on the side of the pen barrel you're using for fill out that report indicating "At some point you're going to run out of ink ... so you better get to gettin' and put a request in for this, your very favoritest pen."  How 'bout an imprint on a banana stem saying:  "Is this your last banana?  Avoid the annoyance of running out by accessing this code right now!"

Or ... maybe I'm just thinking about the imprint on the pepper packet a bit too much ...

 

.......... Ruprecht ( STOP thinking so much ...)

I Was Wrong Wednesday: The Missing Concert Ticket Edition

You know, no one likes being wrong.

And yet ... even I don't know if that's completely true.  I'm sure there's someone out there that likes being wrong.  Maybe even just part of the time.

But I'm not one of those people.  And, while it pains me to admit (in this particular instance) that I'm wrong, I'm still going forward in doing so of my own volition.

So ... here's my tale.  Which concludes in the admission I was indeed and in fact wrong ...

On March 14th, 2023 I purchased tickets through Ticketmaster for a Sunday, May 21st Oakland, California concert featuring the band Love And Rockets.

Now, understand this is a band I've wanted to see since I first discovered them back in the 80s.  They've continually escaped my seeing them live over the many years with one small exception; their alter ego Tones On Tail - which featured 2/3 of the members of Love And Rockets - played in a small club in Hollywood years and years ago.  That show I did get to in the flesh ... and, while the band performed nary a tune from the L&R catalog, I was at least a bit satisfied I caught a derivation of a band I felt connected to.

So ... tickets acquired, I hurried up and waited to see a show still a couple months hence.

And then?  It was time.  That very morning I got on my computer and searched for the electronic tickets that would afford me entry into the show.  But it was to little avail as I couldn't find them to save my life.  

The account I had with Ticketmaster (where my electronic tickets were housed) wasn't cooperating and didn't let me access the tickets in question.  Tickets for another upcoming show - Tears For Fears - were handy and accessible but my Love And Rockets tickets were nowhere to be found.

Now, I had the foresight to print out a copy of my receipt for my purchase.  And that included the order number, the date, the amount paid for, the venue the seats ... just about everything that I needed.  But the receipt stated it could not be used to gain entry into the show.  So I went on a hunt to see how I could go about getting my tickets for the show later that evening.

The response I got back via e-mail was that someone from Ticketmaster would contact me within 24 to 48 hours with a response, zero help in that the show was a scant 10 hours away.  I did everything I took could to try to get in contact with Ticketmaster some other way but to zero avail.

Now?  I had a decision to make.  Do I drive 2 1/2 hours to Oakland and try to get into the show with the receipt I had in hand containing the very seat numbers printed in plain view as proof of my purchase, even though there's a statement on the receipt saying I couldn't use the receipt to gain entry into the show?  Did I commit to a 7 hour round trip to and from Oakland which might yield nothing for my efforts?  Or do I just admit defeat and see what I could do about getting reimbursed for the tickets?

I decided not to waste my time in going to Oakland. And I immediately began the process of trying to get a refund for the extenuating circumstances.

One of the first things I did was access my account that shows upcoming and past events on the Ticketmaster app.  Nowhere did it show there was anything to do with Love And Rockets.  That in itself was curious.  Additionally, I had the foresight to purchase insurance on the tickets should anything come up.  So I had that peace of mind going for me.  (Or so I thought.)

Little did I know months of reimbursement attempts would get me nowhere.

Round and round and round I went with Ticketmaster complaining I had no access to my electronic tickets.  The fact there was nothing on the Ticketmaster app saying I even had Love And Rockets tickets I felt was proof enough there were extenuating circumstances to the situation, proof I couldn't access my tickets.  But Ticketmaster wasn't budging.  They stated it wasn't their fault that I couldn't access my tickets.  I tried reasoning with them, I asked how I was supposed to access tickets that weren't there.  Weeks of attempts from different viewpoints led to one single conclusion: It was apparent I would need to hit up the insurance I'd purchased for the tickets to get reimbursement.

But even that wasn't a solution to the situation.  According to the details and fine print of the insurance, my particular situation wasn't one that culminated in reimbursement.

So almost three months after purchasing the tickets, I finally got access to speaking with an actual person at Ticketmaster as opposed to a chat session or e-mail.  The lady I spoke with was very attentive and understanding, acknowledging exactly where I was coming from with my explanation.  She took copious notes and told me it would be three to five days for a response to get back to me, which I was satisfied with.  I mean ... this is the furthest I'd gotten with Ticketmaster since the whole situation started.

But ... when I got the response, I was told my tickets were accessible and there would be no refund.

So back on the phone I got and spoke with another woman at Ticketmaster.  And this, in three months of attempts, was the first time I got some conclusive and definitive reasoning why I couldn't access my tickets. 

The woman had noted she could see my tickets in my past events.  So I asked her why I could not?  She asked me to verify my e-mail address and, when I did, she stated that wasn't the e-mail address used to access my Ticketmaster account where my Love And Rocket tickets were housed. The only other e-mail address I had I gave to her and she said that was the one where I could actually see my tickets.

So come to find out, months later, I had been working with an incorrect e-mail to access my Ticketmaster app.  At some point in the distant past I had to have purchased some tickets through my secondary e-mail and completely forgot I had done so. For whatever reason it was that e-mail I purchased the Love And Rockets show, thus my ultimate demise in not being able to access the tickets.

So, the insurance didn't help me get a refund, my many, many explanations through all forms of communication with Ticketmaster didn't help me get a refund. 

It was my own faulty blunder, plain and simple.

No refund, no satisfaction ... just the glaring realization I had to admit that, on this particular Wednesday, August 2nd, 2023, I was wrong.

.......... Ruprecht ( STOP )