Category: Retail Experiences

Whirlwind Morning of Errands

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Last night I checked the weekend weather forecast and it was showing rain for today so I thought we might as well get my vehicle emissions test done first thing in the morning. They opened a few minutes early so by the time we were done it had just turned 7:30 am.

On the way home we decided to stop at Tony’s Fresh Market which replaced the Valli Produce we used to shop at years ago. It looked much nicer inside even though the basic layout was nearly identical. Testament to what a little updated flooring and lighting can do. We ended up getting $50 worth of food there which included some fresh salsa and deli items.

When we got home Joe checked one of my tires that was making a noise from what he thought might be a rock (I heard it recently as well). Turns out it was a nail, so off to Discount Tire we went, hoping it wouldn’t be busy since they had just opened a half hour early. Wrong! We were told the wait time was 2+ hours so Joe made an appointment to bring it back in a few days to have it patched. The guy noted the tires could use replacing too which we already knew.

We stopped at the library and then decided since we were out we might as well head over to Target so Joe could pick up a prescription.

At the store I was telling him about this Newsweek article – Foreign hackers are actively targeting critical U.S. infrastructure, including water and wastewater systems, using artificial intelligence-powered tools to identify vulnerabilities and gain access to industrial control systems.

I wanted to buy some bottled water (which we haven’t done in several years) just to be on the safe side in case something does happen. He said Costco would have the best price, so we decided we would go on Monday. Well, that is, until we were leaving Target and saw someone with a lot of water in their cart. Was this the universe telling us to get the water now? We thought so, and Costco had just opened a few minutes before, so we headed over.

Before we went inside we decided to check out their Tire Center since Joe had been planning to replace both my battery and tires soon. Neither have ever been replaced and I’ve had my Crosstrek since October 2017. We ended up getting a battery right then and there since they carry a better brand (Interstate) than the Everstart he had been eying at Walmart, and it was cheaper to boot!

Once we got inside the warehouse I bee-lined over to the AT&T kiosk with the iPhones to get a feel for what the new one will look like. If the predictions are true, the iPhone 18, which comes out next month, is going to be the same size as the iPhone 17. The AT&T rep was really nice and showed me how his personal iPhone 17 Pro compared in size to the iPhone 17 Pro Max by placing it on top of it. There is a very slight difference in width, but the majority of the difference is in how tall the Max is. I personally find no benefit to that, so unless the iPhone 18 Pros differ, I plan to get the base Pro but not the Max version. They both should have the same exact cameras (of which there are three).

Oh and let me talk about that for a bit. I have an iPhone 11 which is going on seven years old. It has two cameras and only has a 2x digital zoom. The iPhone 17 Pro by comparison has a 4x optical zoom. The rep showed me how he could zoom in on a shopper very far away with clarity. I was wowed. Not to mention the latest iPhone camera has 48 megapixels compared to my phone’s measly 12MP. I’m definitely going to be spending money on storage in the new phone with that photo size, but it would be worth it if I could take more nature photos than I do now. I would still need my SLR for birding treks, but I bet the phone would do pretty well for everything else.

I’m getting very excited at the idea of getting a new phone soon. As much as I love my current phone, Apple is dropping support on it with iOS 26 and the battery is to the point it needs replacing, so now is the best time to upgrade even though it’s going to hurt to drop what I’m guessing will be $1500 thanks to the chip shortage. Hopefully I can get another 7 years out of the new phone to make it a more digestible $225 per year. But I digress….

Costco had more water out than usual which made us feel like something might be going on, so we grabbed 3 cases (40 bottles in each) instead of just 1 or 2. I really hope we won’t actually NEED it!

When we got home Joe started working on a late breakfast while I did a little research to find the best place to get new tires of my car. Costco is cheaper than Discount Tire (our usual go-to), especially when you factor in Costco’s free installation. Furthering my research, I learned that Costco rotates their tire sales by brand every 2-3 months, and was able to confirm the Michelin tires we want go on sale this Monday. Therefore, waiting just a few days to place the order will save us another $80. Gotta like that!

Speaking of money saving and stuff, we got a check from State Farm for $105 as part of some cash-back dividend they received.

I’m also getting a credit to my CC for an overpayment on a medical procedure.

Money in. Money out. Repeat until you die.

Update: Leaked information for the iPhone 18 series points to a major main camera upgrade featuring a variable aperture (ranging from f/1.4 to f/2.8) that physically adjusts using moving blades. Reports suggest this advanced hardware might be exclusive to the larger iPhone 18 Pro Max.

Ugh, I hope that’s incorrect because I don’t want the taller phone.

Disney+ Billing Shenanigans

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On July 28th I was on chat, then the phone, with Disney+ for 45 minutes.

We’ve had Hulu free via T-Mobile since sometime in early 2025 I believe. In November 2025 I learned I was able to add Disney+ for $1 which was then billed to me directly by Disney+. Due to the Hulu portion being free, my charges looked like this (taken from the email Disney+ sent me when I signed up):

Everything was fine, until yesterday when I noted on my credit card a charge from Disney+ for $12.99. I logged into my Disney+ account and saw two subscriptions:

One for the Hulu/Disney bundle showing $12.99
One for Hulu on Us via T-Mobile for $0 (which was greyed out since you have to manage it via the T-Mobile website).

I thought back to an email I got in June from Disney+:

At the time I did log into my Disney+ account and didn’t see two subscriptions, or anything other than the $1. I chalked it up to a phishing scam but kept the email just in case. I forgot about the whole thing until I saw that charge.

I was told by the nice Disney+ rep that T-Mobile won’t allow the $1 upgrade, so my choices were to pay the full bundle price or cancel it and be left with just Hulu. I did the latter, and also requested a refund for the charge (which they processed).

I wish I had thought to take screenshots of the billing page in my account throughout all this but I did not.

When I checked Reddit there were multiple posts about this happening to other people and they were given different explanations by the Disney+ reps, so who knows what the truth is:

1) T-Mobile no longer allows adding Disney+ for $1 more
2) Since Hulu and Disney merged billing systems, it no longer allows split billing
3) It was a mistake caused by the Hulu and Disney merge and would be rectified

I’m not sure I buy any of those explanations and this is why:

1) Why would T-Mobile care what subscribers do beyond their free subscription?
2) If Disney+ can show two subscriptions on the account, then they can adjust the pricing on the one that includes Disney+ like they did in the past.
3) If it was a billing error, shouldn’t it have been rectified by now? Those posts were weeks ago and I still had the same thing happen to me.

My thought? They are trying to double-dip. In any case, we weren’t using Disney+ much anymore and were planning on getting rid of T-Mobile soon (more on that in a future post) and therefore will be cancelling Hulu (and Netflix) soon anyway.

4th of July Weekend (07/03-07/05)

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Joe had Friday (07/03) off for the holiday. Since it was so hot and humid we decided it would be a perfect day to run errands, like dropping off an Amazon return at FedEx and hitting up Trader Joe’s since it had been awhile since our last visit.

Afterwards we stopped at Paris Baguette for some delicious pastries and Korean Iced Milk Coffee. It’s a good thing they aren’t closer because I’ve gained enough weight this year since I’ve been stuffing my face without discipline; I’m just so happy to be able to eat after what I went through last year. I do need to reel it in though.

We had Culver’s for dinner as our little holiday celebration since Joe had to eat light on Saturday in preparation for a medical procedure on Sunday.

Saturday (07/04) we hid in the house all day and didn’t do anything to celebrate. Not sure what is worth celebrating right now anyway. This current administration is fucking up anything and everything it can get its hands on. That’s what happens when you put a bunch of narcissistic, unempathetic, rich, brainless cretins in office. Not saying the other side are angels, but this group of people takes the cake.

I temporarily unfroze our credit at all three bureaus so we could apply for Amazon’s Prime VISA. They sent an invitation in the mail and we had just been talking about how annoying it is that Costco only takes VISA or debit and how much we hate using debit, so they caught us at the right time. Plus we got $200 just for signing up!

Now we have all the frickin cards – AMEX, Discover, Mastercard, Target, and VISA. I literally had to put together a cheat sheet for both of us so we know which card to use where to maximize the cash back benefits on each.

Obviously the VISA will be used at Amazon, as well as Costco. We have no choice but to use Discover at Woodman’s since they do not accept any other card, and we’ve been using the AMEX at Aldi since we get more cash back for groceries on it vs the other cards. Frankly the Mastercard offers the least incentives lately so it barely gets used. Target doesn’t get used a ton, although with having to get our prescriptions at the CVS inside, I have been using it more this year than previous years.

Surprisingly I was able to fall asleep before midnight and wasn’t woken up by fireworks even though I know they were popping off.

Sunday (07/05) after grocery shopping, my B12 injection, and Joe’s procedure we headed to REI so I could look at binoculars. I do not understand how an outdoor store has so few binoculars on display to try.

In fact, it doesn’t seem like ANY store really offers the ability to try most of the binoculars they sell, although to be fair the variety is always lacking. Are people really buying them without trying them first? This seems like yet another example of the patriarchy at work – chances are most binoculars are perfectly suitable for men, but for women, and petite ones with small heads, close-set eyes, and glasses like myself, it’s not that easy. I can’t even see through most of them because either the minimum distance between barrels is too wide, or the eye relief isn’t high enough. In fact, I tried two different Nikon models and I was able to see through the mid-range ones with my glasses on, which is the goal, but couldn’t with the higher end pair.

I’m a buy it for life gal so it’s frustrating that I might have to resort to ordering thousands of dollars of binoculars off Amazon just to see if I like any of them. That makes me feel icky and I’m trying to avoid that, but none of these retailers are making it easy.

We even stopped in Best Buy briefly because they sell binoculars but we couldn’t find them. It’s amazing how much I used to love that store and now abhor it.

We stopped in Disc Replay to look around but didn’t buy anything, then picked up Potbelly since we were starving by this point.

We made it home just in time to watch The Cure playing a festival show in Belgium. Since it was being streamed on YouTube we watched on the TV which was especially nice.

Panasonic Microwave Saga

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In February I noticed our microwave display had stuck pixels or whatever you call them on it.

I unplugged it and plugged it back in but it didn’t go away.

I kept an eye on it and within a few days it had gotten worse, so I contacted Panasonic.

Long story short, they told me I had to bring it into an authorized repair center, of which there are two in the entire state of Illinois. I guess I should consider myself lucky that due to where we live both were only 45 minutes away. Imagine if you lived downstate!

The one we were siding with was due east but it turns out the guy who does the repairs is technically retired so doesn’t keep a storefront and doesn’t work weekends. So we had to go with the one out west. We ended up dropping it off there on March 23rd.

Two weeks later they called to say they’d been using it, then unplugging it and plugging it back in for the last week but it wasn’t until the day before they called that the LCD weirdness finally showed up for them. According to them it wasn’t there after we had it unplugged for an extended period to bring it to them. They explained they don’t open up a unit until they can reproduce the error. So that’s all to say that now that they were finally able to see it, they would be opening it up and checking if maybe there was a loose connection or requires replacement parts and then they’d call with another update.

Another two weeks went by and the Panasonic authorized repair center called to say the issue wasn’t happening consistently, but they identified the part causing it. They checked all the parts places they’re authorized by Panasonic to use and none of them have that part. The repair place made it sound like Panasonic doesn’t make that part at all for repairs and suggested it’s because the model # is hard to locate and might be a Target exclusive.

I caught the fact that the woman who called said “they checked the parts sites last night”. Last night? But they should have opened up the unit and identified the part at least two weeks ago. I was so aggravated but said nothing.

We picked up the un-repaired microwave on April 25th and on the 29th I e-mailed Panasonic to ask them what they were going to do now to make things right. On May 6th they replied asking for a copy of the work order which I emailed them. They replied back a few days later stating they would be sending me a check and sure enough, they did. Not sure how they came to the total they did but by my calculations it was around $4 more than we paid, which isn’t enough compensation for all the time and gas we wasted, not to mention the aggravation going back and forth with them and their sad excuses for repair centers.

Needless to say, we will not be purchasing another Panasonic microwave, but will use this “free” one until we can no longer see the display.

Too Good To Go

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Too Good To Go is a service that was created to suddenly prevent food waste. Restaurants and gas stations offer surprise bags – for a pre-paid price you get items nearing expiration (but not yet expired). Usually at places like gas stations it will specify whether it’s a general surprise bag which can contain any consumable they sell or a baked goods surprise bag which could include muffins, cookies, croissants, etc.

All that to say we got a general surprise bag from a gas station recently that was actually very good for $4. Inside was a yogurt parfait, fresh fruit, two muffins, a stuffed croissant, and some Kraft mac and cheese.

This morning we stopped at Speedway to pick up a baked goods surprise bag for $4. First off, it wasn’t ready so we had to wait while they put it together. When it was handed to me I could see through the bag it had a can of Pringles and some candy in it. I pointed out it was supposed to be a baked goods surprise bag and the lady started arguing with me, saying it can include anything. I replied, “no, that would be the regular surprise bag”. I could tell the guy working the counter was looking at her sideways. She was treating ME like I didn’t know what I was talking about when that was HER. I even pointed out in the app it said “baked goods” and she told me they don’t sell cooking items, as if I was asking her for flour and sugar to bake a cake or something! Finally she threw in two packages of mini donuts off a nearby rack to get me to leave.

I got home and opened the bag.

None of the stuff was expiring anytime soon except one of the peanut butter cups which was over a month past expiration. What that means to me is they aren’t following the spirit of the app and are merely trying to pawn off their poor selling items.

Those egg shaped items are bath bombs, by the way. The lady who I dealt with didn’t seem too bright so I wouldn’t be surprised if she thought they were candy due to their shape.

When I got home I looked closer at the baked goods description and it literally said it would include donuts. Wish I had been able to pull that up to show them in store but I was frazzled from being admonished by that stupid woman.

Needless to say I gave them a 1 star rating in the app and explained why. I won’t ever be going inside that Speedway again anyway – it was very dirty and disorganized. Their entire hot food area was completely empty except for some old slices of pizza. No wonder we were the only customers.