Time to dig a sub basement under the basement? :sad:
What are the actual temperatures you’re experiencing?
Mother Nature is not happy.
The bad air from the fires has settled down quite a bit (North East Coast USA)
Good luck!
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Heat index around 105 to 110F. Been that way for most of a month now. We have had some rain so that has helped but no so much for the next couple of weeks. Has kept me indoors a lot more than usual.
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Ouch! Another couple weeks of that and you’ll be properly roasted! >.>
Stay cool! 
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Gratz on the upgrade!
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was on 56k dial up until 2006 XD
I do so miss those dial up sounds. Illegally downloading mp3s on napster at 1.5kbps at 50p an hour, 1.50 during peak, I’m sorry metallica but I was not downloading your stuff for free. If anything, I was being criminally overcharged XD Well, my parents were, they were not happy with those phone bills
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Yeah, leave the computer downloading all weekend. Then, because of minimal error correction, half the stuff didn’t work. Happy days.
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Wow! I love Wal-Mart. 
I use the app for curbside pickup a lot. They now have a ‘I will bring my own bags’ feature. It clearly states, the sales associate will bag your groceries for you at your car. Nice feature. I do not need a 1000 plastic bags at home. I love my reusables. Only problem is, the last 3 times, I got home to find loose groceries rolling around in the back. Poor bell peppers. Any way, I contact the store and the girl says, well the app states I will bag my own groceries and I said, are we looking at the same app? Because it clearly states the sales associate will bag them at my car. Oh no, she says. That is not our responsibility… 
Can the girl read?
Anyway, I went above her. It has been reported. Yes. They are supposed to bag them for me. I am probably blacklisted now and will get a rotten tomato next time I order veggies. But, I got a $10 off promo code for the trouble. 
I feel so blessed.
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One of the many things I learned about America growing up (from watching tv and movies) is that you have people whose job it is just to bag groceries. I realised it must be a cornerstone of your culture as an entire episode of Kenan and Kel was dedicated to how good this one person was at bagging groceries XD (heavy sarcasm, I no longer believe this, I am an adult now : D ) Sometimes we do get a legion of young people at supermarkets waiting at the end of tils to bag your groceries, but they’re usually there to raise awareness for a charity.
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Grocery baggers are a thing of the past except at a few higher end groceries where special customers still get special attention and their groceries carried out for them.
Having been married into the military life many years ago, I can say that the grocery store on the military base I shopped on (101st Airborne) did indeed have people that only bagged and carried out your groceries. They were excellent at what they did! Fast and careful. They had to be trained, I am sure. Their only pay was the tip you gave them. I think I got spoiled. The checkers were excellent as well. Never have encountered another store with such speed and efficiency. So, the bagger is not entirely myth. Just not something you see much these days. My youngest brother’s first job was a bagger at Piggly Wiggly. Store is gone now. Was the last store I know of to employ baggers.
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The grocery bagger was much more common before the self-check outs . You truly had a 50/50 chance of having excellent experience or having a bagger that didn’t care about putting your carton of eggs in with canned goods.
We have a Payless Supermarket near me (part of Kroger) that still has them during peak hours. It really does help in getting people get through more quickly.
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Military Grade bagging and checkout system 
A trained and efficient team guiding you through a swift shopping experience, I don’t think I could come back from that.
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Not in my area of the U. S.
Self checkout is, at best, 50 % with the rest being cashier/bagger or cashier + bagger. Separate bagger is more common as line size increases and is ad hoc.
Sometimes the self-checkout lines are so long that people move to a cashier line.
As of the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, though, no-contact pickup and delivery options mushroomed. In our case, we have one chain we use for delivery, one for fast local pickup, and infrequent in-store shopping (while masked).
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I have no idea what he did to the suspension of that car, and I have no idea how that bull got such ginormous horns…
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Interesting. My only memory is that around the year 2000, walmart opened stores in Germany and there was “a cultural misunderstanding”:
People saw a cheap (=low salaries) store in which the employees smiled at nothing all day… In all other low-paying supermarkets, employees just have normal honest facial expressions, no problem. Under which conditions would an underpaid tired worker smile? Are they being forced to, are they stupid, is someone holding their family members hostage, have they been brainwashed into not being worth a good salary, will they be punished for showing facial expressions, …? People could not get their heads around this, it felt dishonest.
And the first shoppers returned and said, “some strange child try to steal my stuff! They claimed they were helping me pack! And then they wanted extra money! I had to fend the little buggers off!” 
There was a whole list of complains: 1) listen here, first, you don’t touch my stuff!! 2) why are you filling my stuff into paper bags whose bottom will fall out when I have a sturdy reusable cloth bag right here?? 3) OMG you packed the items in the wrong order! My grandmother taught me to put the items on the conveyor belt in this order, and godhelpyou, you just swapped two, OMG! 
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If you enter Wal Mart at just the right (really the wrong) time, you will catch their morning pep rally. Every worker not assisting anyone MUST come to the back. They pray and give ‘inspiration’ for the day. Then, like a football team on the field, they stack their hands together and let out some kind of cheer…never have been able to discern what they are saying. Then they all go back to doing, or not doing, their job.
If you need assistance during this ritual, tough luck.
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Ah, 'Murrica… 
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I have had employees come up and ask me if I need help when they announce the event on the intercom. They look at me with big puppy dog eyes, pleading for help. I tell them yes, I need help. They are so relieved. 
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I just do Walmart no-contact pickup now, though Walmart is our second choice. Normally we get delivery from a different chain, which has only a $59 annual fee.
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