No one ever taught me to write cheques (just like no one ever told you how to spell them, heathens), so this is all new to me.

I've had travelers cheques! Otherwise, I just use checks.

My sister's boyfriend, who talks about virtually nothing but sports and goes to every one of his school's games, spent one lunchtime (in public) singing his school's fight song or whatever at us. I was mortified. He would not shut up. The song included a lot of nonsense syllables, which he said was the point. I guess they're usually drunk when they sing it.

Lunch today was tom yum soup and yummy basil chicken at the Thai place downstairs from me.

as well as making the store names possessive.

I blame the McDonald's conglomerate for that, actually. And Starbucks, I guess, even though it isn't possessive. Because it seems like more people call the grocery store "Kroger's" even though it's "Kroger."

And in high school when I was a cashier at K-Mart, when people would write checks (see how I just tied two topics together?) (it was 1989 -- people wrote checks a lot), the majority of them wrote the check to "K-Marts."

Which wasn't as weird as the woman who, after I totalled up her stuff and she pulled out her checkbook, looked at me and then asked, "Where am I?" I must have given her the "Buh?" look, because she said, "What STORE? What store is this?!?"

Seriously, you go shopping and don't know what STORE you drove youself to and walked into? Not to mention the fact that the big fucking "K" is EVERYWHERE.

No, I can totally have done that. I tried to present Basha`s with my Safeway club card once. Oops?

I learned the same check-writing habits as the rest of yous, on my first day of training at my bank job. Sometimes I write "one hundred and seventy two and no/100" or whatever anyway, but I feel bad about it after.

Also I like to call stores "the [whatever]'s" myself, and I'm all northeast.

When I worked at B&N, we had so many people trying to give me Borders coupons or writing out their checks (yes, people are still writing out checks at stores!) to Borders. When I gave them their coupons back, they'd do a little look around the store and say, "You mean, I'm not in Borders?"

ION, Bangable Dudes in History, Rated in Pie Charts

Wow, Young Joseph Stalin was pretty hot!

My aunt used to say "K-marx" or at least it sounded like K-Marx.

When I worked at JCPenney, we used to call it Penney's, but never JCPenneys. Which is sort of weird. And Macy's is possessive, right?

Seriously, you go shopping and don't know what STORE you drove youself to and walked into? Not to mention the fact that the big fucking "K" is EVERYWHERE.

Here's my guide based on my experience.

You are in a K-Mart if the interior of the store looks at least twenty years old and there's a sight yellow-ish atmosphere from the combination of florescent lighting and age.

You are in a Wal-Mart if the store has a thin blue veneer that looks modern and cheap at the same time, as if you applied a Facebook(tm)-like template over the store. They are also marked by dystopian-style LCD screens playing advertisements everywhere you go.

You are in a Target if you so assaulted by red that you can make no actual judgement of the interior of the store. Another giveaway is if they shit you want instead of just shit you need.

When I worked at B&N, we had so many people trying to give me Borders coupons or writing out their checks (yes, people are still writing out checks at stores!) to Borders. When I gave them their coupons back, they'd do a little look around the store and say, "You mean, I'm not in Borders?"

And people used to give me B&N coupons and GC all the time when I worked at Borders. They were always shocked too.