Is there some woke reason I have missed that explains why virtually all Halloween lawn decorations in my Northern Virginia neighborhood consist of gravestones, skulls, skeletons and spiders? Or are people suddenly suffering from an appalling lack of imagination? No witches, no black cats, no devils, no vampires, no wolfmen. I made the rounds today with Spuds, and saw no ghosts at all, except in front of one house with a large American flag flying. Obviously, the “ghost” is really a reference to the Klan, and anyone who flies Old Glory is likely to be a racist. Or am I just imagining it all?

1. Customer service ethics: I am going to war with CVS. It was August 28 when I first complained to CVS about my appalling treatment at the local store. At the time when I wrote the post, I was awaiting a promised call (24-48 hours) from a “group leader” regarding my incident report. The call never came. I called two days later to register a second complaint about the failure of CVS to follow through as promised on my first complaint. This time, I got profuse apologies, a new incident number for future reference, and a second assurance that I would be receiving a call, also in 24 to 48 hours. That call also never came.

In mid-September, I called the complaint line a third time, to add my third complaint to the previous two, this one about being jerked around and lied to in the last call. I was told that there was a video of my encounter, that it would be reviewed, and that a named executive would contact me “in a week to 10 days.”

Guess what happened. Oh, come on, guess.

There was no contact. Thus it was that yesterday, on October 15, that I called CVS Customer Relations to register complaint #4. I recounted the incident and the previous calls, as well as their apparently lack of sincerity. “It seems clear to me that the CVS policy is to delay, obfuscate, and draw out the process, assuming that dissatisfied and abused customers will give up and drop their complaints. I’m sure that works with most people, but it won’t work with me. I am prepared to pursue this until I see a fair and appropriate response, ” I said. This agent, like the others, assured me that CVS wasn’t like that, but that since she wasn’t a member of “the leadership group,” she wasn’t sure what she could do to ensure action. “Let me transfer you to someone higher up who can help,” she said. Then she transferred me. “Hello?” a loud voice said when the call was picked up. “Yes, hi,” I said. “Is this CVS?” “CVS? Fuck no!” the charming woman shouted, and hung up.

So I made my fifth call to submit my 5th complaint. That nice agent said she would transfer me to her manager. “It’s hard with everyone working at home,” she added. The manager never answered the phone. After profuse apologies, the agent suggested that I call back next week.

2. On the plus side, more people will read my article there than ever see what I write here...A website with millions of views (it claims) stole a copyrighted article I wrote for my now-defunct theater company, published it almost word for word, and included no attribution or credit while representing the piece as original. How many wars is it wise to fight simultaneously?

I better ask George W. Bush.

3. Trump Derangement as a campaign strategy. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this before. In Virginia, where Clinton bag man Terry McAuliffe is trying to get elected governor again and running scared. Democrats are featuring a TV ad that says nothing about Terry and virtually nothing about his GOP opponent, Glenn Youngkin, except that Donald Trump endorsed him and Youngkin said he was honored. This isn’t even ad hominem negative campaigning. It’s an implied ad hominem attack against someone who isn’t running but who has stated that he supports a candidate, with the implication that politely accepting an endorsement is proof of fealty, or alliance, or affection, or something. As with the successful 2020 strategy of running an obviously unfit Presidential candidate with an obviously unqualified running mate on the assumption that sufficient numbers of voters will decide on who they want as their leaders based solely on raw, blinding hatred of the alternative, Virginia Democrats are similarly courting hate to compensate for their blatantly unethical candidate for governor, who slipped up and admitted that he doesn’t want parents sticking their noses into the progressive indoctrination of their children.

This is no way to run a democracy.