First World Problems: The Grocery Store Incident

(Image courtesy of memerial.net)

All my friends say I'm Larry David.  Kinda funny considering I'm a woman and neither bald nor old. So to get stuck with this Larry David tag is a bit ridiculous.  But if you know me well, it really is apropos.  When I'm at a restaurant my order is seldom correct, and it seems wherever I go, trouble naturally ensues.  No matter what I'm doing, I'm bound to create a firestorm of controversy.  I can't even go to the grocery store without inciting a near riot.  Case in point:  tonight I'm at Fresh Co. It's late - around 9:30 pm - and the store is nearly empty. At this point, there are more employees on the floor than customers. When I get to the checkout there are only two cashiers.  One is serving someone with many items still to go.  The other, who just happens to my my favourite cashier, is free and there's not another customer for as far as the eye can see.  I reroute and switch to her line. She greets me sweetly and immediately begins to scan my items through.  Near the end, I have her price match a few items.  (Four to be exact.)  Around this point, a woman lines up behind me.

I go through the items quickly and as I'm finishing my last price match, the woman slams her milk bag down onto the conveyer belt as hard as is humanly possible. The heck??? What set her off? My cart is behind me. Intentionally. I do this so weird people without any sense of personal space boundaries don't sidle up beside me and get an eyeful of my PIN. I push my cart towards me, thinking it's possibly standing between her getting her goods onto the conveyer belt? But then I notice an older couple (maybe around 65?) who have now lined up behind her. The man is shaking his head and his wife, who looks like she just sucked on a lemon, is giving me a serious death glare. They are all whispering low and conspiratorially while glancing in my direction.

Now I'm really curious, but I'm also starting to feel really self-conscious and uncomfortable. Am I doing too much price matching? It's not taking any time at all. I have my items organized, my flyers out, the pages ready and the cashier is going through it as fast as I can present them. The whole process takes under a minute so what the heck?!? I still can't figure out why everyone is so irate. I start to bag my groceries while the old woman shoots evil glances my way. Her husband continues to shake his head - to the point I'm wondering if he has some sort of medical condition. Milk Bag Thrower finishes her transaction and leaves in a huff, all the while refusing to look at me which is wise on her part as I'm dying to get to the bottom of this and I'm ready to go toe to toe with her.

The old woman behind her hoists a giant jug of fake cranberry cocktail off the belt and departs, leaving her husband to pay. He gives another head shake while he's punching in his PIN and just when he finishes bagging his groceries, he adds the kicker by throwing one last dramatic head flourish in for good measure before turning to leave. At this point I snap.  "What are you shaking your head about?"

He wheels around in a flash.  "Well, you're a very rude person."

"ME?!? That's RICH, Shakey. You're the one having a seizure while your wife's been giving me the evil eye. And I'm rude?"  

He interjects.  "You're in the express lane."

Oops.

Now this is where things could have gone differently. Instead of slamming milk down, head shaking, and pulling a face like you just ate a steaming dog turd, why not just calmly say, "Excuse me, this is the express line." How hard would that have been? But that's not what happened. I have ample reason why the man standing before me has lost an extra two minutes of his life at my hands.  Truth be told, I had no clue. I'm tired. It's late. I haven't eaten dinner. I got my period right before I left the house and the cramps are kicking in. Plus I already went grocery shopping the night before so this is the last place I want to be. I just wasn't paying attention and it totally escaped me. Chalk it up to full on mommybrain. An honest (albeit stupid) mistake. But looking at the sour mug on this guy, do you think any of it would compute? And do I really care to offer an excuse after all this bullshit? At this point I'm just angry and there's no way in hell I'm going to apologize. Instead I offer:

"Well, when I got up here, there was no one in line so I can't see how it affected you since I was almost checked out by the time you arrived."

Shakey McTurd just stares and then says, "You've got a bit of an attitude."

"Oh, you THINK??!@????" I fire back.

At this point Shakey realizes he can't win. He turns tail and scurries off in a hurry. I call after him (loudly):

"Hey!  Shakey McFuckin' Shakerson?" 

Still walking.  Ignoring me.  

Even louder now.  (Ok, yelling.) "Why don't you go and FUCK YOURSELF???"

Not my proudest moment. Or the best of comebacks but that's all I can come up with on short notice.

At any rate, Shakey might have feared for his life, realizing it wasn't smart to poke the bear.  He keeps walking and doesn't look back. I turn around to finish bagging my groceries and notice that no one in line is looking at me. They've got their eyes studiously averted. Like I'm that crazy guy in the subway car who you painfully avoid making eye contact with. Oh boy. How embarrassing.  I clock the sign above the checkout.

1 - 16 items.

Well hell. Feeling about two inches tall, I turn to the cashier and say quietly, "I'm sorry. I didn't know you were an express line."  She comes to life. No sweetness here. "Yes." She says snottily, in a loud voice. "I am."

Really?  Now you decide to finally grow a backbone and speak up instead of telling me when I arrived? Jeebus.  Favourite cashier status revoked.  "Well, I wish you had told me," is all I can manage.

So here's my point: Do I feel good at screaming and cussing out an old man at a grocery store? No. Absolutely not. Would I do it again? Hell yes. And here's why. If you see some boorish asshole in line at the grocery store with 27 items on the belt, namely me - a frazzled tired mom who's starving and feeling like shit - don't bust out the torches and pitchforks and get yourself worked up into an apoplectic fit that you end up popping a vein. Tell the person.  Nicely if at all possible. There's a good chance they haven`t a clue. Isn't it better to have someone learn from their mistakes instead of just seething with rage while they continue on completely unaware? By all means, pull the meanest face you can muster, shake your head until it falls off. And if you want to throw down your milk? Knock yourself out. A good loud bang will probably get me to pay attention since the other passive acts of aggression would have gone wholly unnoticed. At least I'll get the satisfaction of knowing your milk will leak all the way home. You'll probably lose sleep over it too and tell everyone about the rude lady in line who went over the limit by 11 items (gasp!) and then SWORE at you. But will you stop to think for even a moment that you could have handled the situation differently? That maybe there were other circumstances at play? Doubtful. If you don't want to be part of the solution, you're just part of the problem. In my case, I shouldn't have let my temper get the best of me but at least I tried to find out what that issue was. I bet most people wouldn't even notice or give a rat's ass.