I donāt go in for premonitions or hunches; generally I think coincidence is at play or I consciously ignored several factoids that my subconscious sorted through and spat out a conclusion.
But yesterday morning as I dumped a couple of Tbs of my half-full 3-pound box of kosher salt into my pinch pot, the thought hit me out of nowhere that, āI need to get 2 more boxes of thisā.
This is the shelf where the kosher salt used to reside at my local chain grocer.
So, whatever it was that prompted me to get more kosher salt, it was less a premonition and more of a too-darned-late-monition.
I googled and apparently thereās been a labor disruption for some time now; I simply hadnāt looked for salt in quite a while, and I donāt know how long my store has been low/empty of stocks.
Going back to my thoughts about what a premonition is, I wonder if I half-heard some news item on the radio in the last few days.
I have not been able to find Altoid mini mints ANYWHERE near meā¦ well, in HI for about twice the price as the mainland, butā¦ I may just have to order them online.
Weird, my local Giant has its usual variety of kosher salt. They have been out of the Altoids mints, but still have the cinnamon in stock (not a big fan).
I loathe the cinnamon, but even the regular size mints donāt taste the same as the small ones. Theyāre chalkier & sweeter to my taste. Maybe I have to bite the bullet and hit up a Mallwart. Le sigh.
Yeah, I canāt be bothered with the cinnamonālike it in my baked goods, but I prefer mint in my candy-like products.
I avoid WM like the plague; think Iād rather order online and wait.
Yeah. I went there maybe once or so bc they had water glasses for 50 cents, and we were hosting an 80+ people NYE party 
But generally I avoid it like the plague.
I was just talking to someone about deja vu, which is apparently related . Not related enough to wade through the following, but now itās āwhatās on my mind.ā 
Plane to ATL taking off!
I went to WM once 20 years ago to get a burner phone because Iād lost my mobile in the airport and those were before the days that you could go to your cell service provider, buy a new phone, and have them activate a SIM with your old number. Cingular could only do numbers in the local area code. I had to wait until I got home to replace my phone. So in the meantime I went to Walmart to get a Tracphone so that I could communicate with the hospital where my dad was. The woman in Walmart actually set up the phone for me, but the store itself depressed me profoundly. I didnāt even realize they had groceries then. I understand they are the largest grocery in the country. I think of the small southern town my mother grew up in and the āMerchantileā grocery with the wooden floors that would deliver - you called them and placed an order. Gone now. As are the other small merchants. The little downtown is deserted. But there is ā¦ a big Walmart outside of town. I will admit that I have ordered some things from Walmart in the past few years, because Amazon doesnāt have everything.
And I love peppermint Altoids. The big ones. (sorry). Great for when you are taking icky meds that leave a bad taste in your mouth. Stuff your face with Altoids!!
Love it.
Itās open enrollment time: random question 
dental
Insurance? United or Delta Dental?
I had blue cross blue shield but as of next year my dentist will not be covered by them so I need to change.
Thoughts?
I donāt know anything about United Dental, but having had Delta for many years, my dentists/oral surgeons consider it to be excellent.
Medical conference?
This and other reasons, I have not set foot in a Walmart in 25+ years. In my small town, they opened a store, killed off the (admittedly) not very competitive clothiers, grocers, shoe stores, and general stores, then after 10 years pulled out and left an empty husk with nothing within 25 miles. This episode has repeated itself in a lot of small towns. I read what (I think) was a non-opinionated analysis that indicated that the tax incentives most of these small towns gave to WM was most often not repaid by the āadditional sales tax revenueā they expected to achieve before WM pulled the store 6 or 10 years later.
The other issue is they helped to kill off (IMO) several US manufacturers by supporting their ex-US suppliers who were illegally price dumping. Even after several stateās attorneys general sued those suppliers for illegal price dumping, WM went to bat for them in court. Meanwhile, US manufacturers of flat glasses and LCD consoles for TVs, and container companies like Rubbermaid, went under.
(Yes, you can still find items branded as Rubbermaid, but the company went bankrupt and the trademarks and some of the manufacturing equipment were picked up at fire sale prices by Newell Corp. I had engineer friends who were employed by Rubbermaid and watched WM destroy the company in real time.)
We have BCBS med but they donāt cover dental here (or maybe itās just that my wifeās employer doesnāt contract with them). Weāve got CIGNA for dental.
We did have United for many years, as our regular med, and I can say that I thought they were outstanding at both coverage and responsiveness. I was pretty sad when my wifeās employer stopped working with their group plans(1). So if they havenāt gone downhill, hereās one reco for UHC in general.
But seriously I almost wonder if thereās any sense in dental ins.? They cover so little and the annual maxes are so small that I think, WTH are we paying $40/mo/person for?
Bi-annual cleanings, I guess, sure. Maybe those amount to the premium cost all by themselves? But Iāve cracked 2 molars in 4 years and the coverage for the required root canals and then the crowns was very little - I think I maxed it out at $1K then paid the rest (several more thousands both times) out of pocket.
(1) For many years my employer had the better offerings, but then we merged with a bigger corp who instituted 2 changes. Highly compensated employees got much less Monopoly money to pay for benefits, and the contracts they struck with insurers charged per person covered up to the 8th person. As a family of 6, between the two changes my costs went up 4X in that one year. So we shifted to my wifeās insurance policies which still even today only charge as āsingle, 2-party, or familyā.
Not this time. Thanksgiving with the fam.
āBut seriously I almost wonder if thereās any sense in dental ins.? They cover so little and the annual maxes are so small that I think, WTH are we paying $40/mo/person for?
Bi-annual cleanings, I guess, sure. Maybe those amount to the premium cost all by themselves? ā
Yeah, some people donāt do the math when it comes to employer sponsored dental insurance. It covers two cleanings and one set of x-rays per year. You pay more per year than you would in office, but it pays 40% of $1100 major dental per year, which may or may not be covered. I decided to cancel mine years ago and take my chances. I definitely won out in the long run.
We were not happy with Delta when we had it and when we had the chance to change we did. Aetna was offered to us and weāve been happy with it fir many years. We have United Healthcare and it is okay. Express Scripts has a lot of problems.
Thanks for this data point. Iāve been skeptical for some time, but my wife works in insurance and her dad was a SF agent most of his life, so trying to talk about dropping insurance can beā¦ kind of difficult. (I may be a Philistine but I also question the necessity of getting prophy and checkup every 6 mos instead of just annuallyā¦)
I did get her to agree we should cancel and cash in my āuniversal variable life policyā next January when the tax hit wonāt be so bad (I sold a bunch of stock this year, so I donāt want more tax liability this year). Those uni-var policies were pure crap. Well, not crap if you died soon after taking it out because it did pay the full death benefit immediately upon issuance just like any life policy, should you die early. But because they were supposedly a hybrid between whole life (value generating) and term life (death benefit) they did not perform very well vs. simply investing the majority of the money elsewhere and buying a simple term life policy if you needed it. But her dad was a big believer at the time he sold us on it.
