Overhead Annoucements

Overhead announcements just don't work for me. I never remember that they are even there spitting out useless tirades or useful information.

I learned the hard way about overhead announcements quite a few years ago when my oldest son was a toddler, and I was pregnant with my second child.

Back in 1998 I was on vacation in Utah on a well deserved 2 week visit to see lots of family members. I went by airflight. The visit started out with a fun high and ended on a emotional note with the death with a family member and a funeral. Even though I wasn't particulary close to the family member, my pregnant emotions was just easily overwrought from the whole day.

The air flight home with a tired toddler and being "emotionally overwrought" pregnant was very trying. I was trying my best to cope with the annoyed looks from the other people and the attendants. They weren't annoyed with my toddler though. It was with me, with the communication difficulties I was having.

When I arrived home in Phoenix, my SIL was supposed to be there to meet me in the terminal and drive me home to Tucson. She wasn't there. I waited a whole hour. I had no money and my kid and I were starving. No one seemed inclined to help a tired pregnant mom and her tired toddler. It had been a long day from leaving to the airport at 11 am and arriving in Phoenix by 6 pm. There was not one kind face I could find for help. Back then of course there was no texting phones so I had no way to contact my husband and ask what to do.

So finally I just got my credit card that I didn't really want to use and arranged for a shuttle ride home. During that timeframe my SIL wasn't the most dependable or trustworthy person so I felt that she just forgot to come to Phoenix.  Meanwhile my SIL was looking with the police for about 3 hours all over the entire Phoenix airport while I was taking my shuttle ride home. I was declared missing and my husband was at work frantic, my MIL and FIL were frantic, and my SIL was frantic.

I arrived to the shuttle dropoff and asked someone in the office to call my husband. Oh, how I hated having to always depend on strangers to contact my own husband. My husband picks me up and he is worried and upset, and relates the whole story to me on how my toddler and I were "missing."

He finally asks why I didn't go to customer service and use the overhead announcement to inform my SIL where I was and find out if my SIL was even there if she showed up too meet me at a certain location.

?

what is an overhead announcement?

?

There are many things I could be using or doing to make my life less complicated but I just don't know about them. If it depends on my hearing to know that they exist, it is not going to happen for me. When I DO find out about it, it is always through some horribly embarassing and difficult moment for me.

My SIL declared she was going to kill me when she found out I was finally at home, and thankfully that hasn't happened. She had 3 hours to cool off during a long drive home alone. (In my defense she shouldn't have been super late either, and my other defense is that my pregnant brain just shut down)

So fast forward to several years later to last night of November 11, 2010.

I was shopping late at Walgreens to get a couple of vaporizers and was just looking over things from aisle to aisle.

After a while an bossy and upset old lady comes to me and says, "we are closing now!" Her hands were on her hips and she was all snippy and snarky. "We made several annoucements on the overhead!"

?

(oh yeah, remembering the overhead thing)

"Oh I am sorry. I am deaf. You were announcing that you were closing this whole time?"

 I had a snarky retort of my own:

When someone doesn't repond after a 2nd and 3rd time, don't ya think you should go check the situation out in person?

But I only said it in my head. One other thing I did learn the hard way years ago is that you don't piss off a mad old lady.

Ah well. I don't mind educating the public and helping them learn that not everyone is the same and their bodies don't function the same way, no matter what the outward appearances appear to be.

I am sure that old lady learned the old way and will not be using an overhead announcement on a single patron in a closing store over, and over, and over, and over, and over.....

This time she is the embarassed one. Not me.

But I have to wonder: how many times over my life have people tried to "overhead announce" something to me while I am shopping?

Probably a 1000 times.

And I guarantee it will happen again, a 1000 more times.

Oh man! I just remembered just now! One time I was a young student at BYU in 1992 studying in the study lounge and I fell asleep on one of the long cushion benches. I was woken up by a concerned janitor and was asked to leave the building, which was COMPLETELY empty of all people. There was a fire alarm going off and all the students were outside. I was SO embarassed that all these young students were just passing me by, probably snickering at me" while I was "sleeping through" the fire alarms and possible overhead announcements to exit the building.

I better stop writing this post now, before anything else embarassing comes to mind..