OK. I waited a week - - 6 days to be precise - - and the only opinions I got were from Janice and my mom. (My 2 most loyal readers.) So, either no one is frequenting the blog lately, or they didn't follow my very strict directions. Tsk, tsk....... In either case, I'll go ahead and fill you in on the drama that went down in the grocery store check-out line last week.
As I think most of you know by now, since I've written about it frequently enough, my true test of the kind of Saturday I'm going to have lies in what time I make it to the grocery store. If I can be there before 9:00am, I know it's going to be a good day. And it just so happened that on this particular Saturday I was pushing my cart through the isles by 8:00. Things were already off to a great start because I didn't have to drag the kids along, and as I made my way leisurely up and down each isle, I found - in stock and in place - each and every item that was on my list. Seriously.....How could my morning get any better? I was practically whistling 'Zippety-Do-Da' as I pushed my cart into the check-out line.
I was standing behind a gentleman who had 2 carts. I patiently waited, basking in the warm glow of a perfect morning, as he was unloading his first cart onto the belt. As the groceries belonging to this gentleman were being scanned and he was moving forward, I came to the realization that he actually only had one cart (Cart A, according to the scenario from the Question Of The Day.) and that the cart in front of me (Cart B) belonged to another person -- who just happened to be M.I.A. (So as you may or may not have guessed by now, I was Cart C.) I looked around for Cart B's person. There was no one in sight. By now, the groceries from Cart A were almost entirely through the scanning process and the belt was almost empty. I waited, looking around a little more. It was time for the next person to put their groceries up and still, there was no one in sight who looked like he or she belonged to the lone cart in front of me. "Well, I guess I'll just go." I thought to myself, scanning the store one more time. "Who knows where this person went or how long it will take them to get back....." So, I went around Cart B and unloaded all my groceries up onto the belt. I was almost finished when the guy from Cart B returned. And folks, this is what prompted my oh-so-important Question Of The Day posting. Because this is the point when things started to get ugly.
The gentleman in front of me was paying for his groceries, and I was leaning over fishing the last couple of items out of my cart when I heard an angry voice behind me. "Did this full cart sitting here not mean anything to you?!" Do you ever have those moments when you have trouble comprehending what's happening to you because it's so far off base from what you'd consider to be "normal"? This was one of those times. I turned around to look behind me, totally bewildered. Was he talking to me? "Wha.....?" I half stammered. "You........ You weren't here........." I'm sure I looked completely confused. I was. Was this guy serious? He repeated himself. "I said, did this full cart sitting here not mean anything to you?! You thought you could just go on and go ahead of me?!" And as I was staring at him with a confused look, head cocked sideways, blinking enough times to try to make his words, combined with his anger, make sense in my head, it all started to sink in. He was mad. Mad because I went in front of him while he was gone. It took a minute, but I began to gather my wits.
"You weren't here." I pointed out again.
"So you just didn't see the full cart that might indicate to you that someone was coming back?!" he shot back at me.
"No. I saw it." I replied. "But you weren't here. Someone had to go next." Up until this point I had had the perfect morning. I wasn't going to let this guy ruin it.
"It wasn't your place to go next!" he said angrily to me. "I was coming right back. I left my cart here!"
"You know, " I said to him, in as nice a way as I could humanly muster, "when I have to leave my cart in the check-out line, I just pull it over to the side so that other people can go around me if they need to." I was hoping that maybe, somehow, for some reason, that suggestion would help make him more reasonable. That perhaps the mere suggestion that someone may have had a different point of view of what proper check-out-line etiquette was could possibly help him get his undies out of the extremely tight wad that they were obviously in.
He angrily shot something back about how he was back in time to go next and how I'd cut him off, etc, etc.....
And since I was determined to hold onto the one shred of my perfect morning that I still had left, I took a step back and extended my arm in a sweeping motion, palm-side up, toward the cashier. The cashier was watching all of this go down. The first guy was long gone and she was waiting for me.
"Look," I said, "If you want to go ahead of me, by all means, please do."
He shot me a look that you wouldn't believe and said, "If you take all of your stuff off the belt then I will!" He was nasty about it. And then he added "Otherwise you're just WASTING MY TIME!"
I'm not sure what it was about that last statement -- about me wasting his time -- that finally did it. Maybe I couldn't believe that he thought his time was so much more valuable than mine that I should be expected to wait for him indefinitely, but that he should not ever be expected to be inconvenienced for 2 minutes. Maybe it was the irony that someone who had the time to spare arguing about who was next in line could be so concerned about who was, in actuality, wasting it. Maybe it was just that he'd finally managed to completely strip me of every ounce of warm glow and good will that I'd had up until that moment. Whatever it was, I think the SNAP that happened inside me was audible to anyone within a 10 foot radius.
"Sir.... She'll be through in 2 seconds...." the cashier was saying. I, in the meantime was standing completely still giving him an icy stare. "Sir...." she said again, "Really. It'll just take a minute...... Here, let me just scan this...." She picked up a roll of paper towels and started pulling it toward the scanner. It was almost happening in slow motion.
"Ohnonononononono NO!" I yelled, as I lunged my entire body across the belt and grabbed the paper towels. I didn't yank them away from her, but I held onto them so that she couldn't move them. "Didn't you hear him?" I said in the loudest, most patronizing voice I could muster. "I'm wasting HIS time!!!" She released her grip on the paper towels. "I mean, the very last thing I would ever want to do is waste HIS time! God Forbid that I should go ahead of him! His cart was holding his place in line!! What in the world could I have possibly been thinking?! There was no one actually AT his cart, but clearly I was mistaken!!!!" I was practically shouting now as I made a huge scene out of putting all my groceries back into my cart. Part of me, the infuriated part of me, couldn't believe that I was actually going to let this prick go ahead of me. But the other part, the part that had been enjoying my perfect morning, just wanted to salvage a little bit of the leisurely morning I'd had before he showed up. I just wanted to scan and bag my groceries in peace, without some gigantic a-hole huffing and puffing and breathing down my neck.
I threw the last of my items into my cart and spun to face him. I took a very deep bow and said, as patronizingly as I could, "Please, please let me know if there is anything else I can do for you today..... Is there any other way that I can assist you with your time efficiency this morning?"
"Nope. This'll do it." he said, and started unloading his cart.
He took his own sweet time too. I was so furious I was shaking. And because in 34 years I can't even begin to remember a time when I haven't absolutely had to have the last word in a confrontation, I shouted at him as he was walking away "You make sure to have a fantastic day now! I hope you make fabulous use of your EXTRA 2 MINUTES!!!!!!!!!!!!"
He said something to me over his shoulder, but I didn't hear it. I looked at the cashier, who I'm sure doesn't get to see a scene like that go down in her check-out-line every day, and said "Geeze...... What a jackass." And if I had any worries that maybe she thought I was a little bit crazy, they quickly evaporated when she replied, "You're tellin' me, honey! I saw the whole thing."
So in the end, I did actually finish my grocery shopping by 9:00 in the morning. And I did, in fact manage to recapture my 'Zippety-Do-Da' feeling a couple of hours later. After all the adrenaline had left my body. After I was back at home. After all the groceries were put away. It happened as I was taking the most fabulous, leisurely, morning walk with my family. The sunlight was warm and bright, the sky was a beautiful Carolina blue, and we all strolled, hand in hand through the neighborhood so we could play in the park. It was perfect. And time wasn't a factor at all.........
I'm Rachel Kafsky, and you've just heard The Rest Of The Story.
As I think most of you know by now, since I've written about it frequently enough, my true test of the kind of Saturday I'm going to have lies in what time I make it to the grocery store. If I can be there before 9:00am, I know it's going to be a good day. And it just so happened that on this particular Saturday I was pushing my cart through the isles by 8:00. Things were already off to a great start because I didn't have to drag the kids along, and as I made my way leisurely up and down each isle, I found - in stock and in place - each and every item that was on my list. Seriously.....How could my morning get any better? I was practically whistling 'Zippety-Do-Da' as I pushed my cart into the check-out line.
I was standing behind a gentleman who had 2 carts. I patiently waited, basking in the warm glow of a perfect morning, as he was unloading his first cart onto the belt. As the groceries belonging to this gentleman were being scanned and he was moving forward, I came to the realization that he actually only had one cart (Cart A, according to the scenario from the Question Of The Day.) and that the cart in front of me (Cart B) belonged to another person -- who just happened to be M.I.A. (So as you may or may not have guessed by now, I was Cart C.) I looked around for Cart B's person. There was no one in sight. By now, the groceries from Cart A were almost entirely through the scanning process and the belt was almost empty. I waited, looking around a little more. It was time for the next person to put their groceries up and still, there was no one in sight who looked like he or she belonged to the lone cart in front of me. "Well, I guess I'll just go." I thought to myself, scanning the store one more time. "Who knows where this person went or how long it will take them to get back....." So, I went around Cart B and unloaded all my groceries up onto the belt. I was almost finished when the guy from Cart B returned. And folks, this is what prompted my oh-so-important Question Of The Day posting. Because this is the point when things started to get ugly.
The gentleman in front of me was paying for his groceries, and I was leaning over fishing the last couple of items out of my cart when I heard an angry voice behind me. "Did this full cart sitting here not mean anything to you?!" Do you ever have those moments when you have trouble comprehending what's happening to you because it's so far off base from what you'd consider to be "normal"? This was one of those times. I turned around to look behind me, totally bewildered. Was he talking to me? "Wha.....?" I half stammered. "You........ You weren't here........." I'm sure I looked completely confused. I was. Was this guy serious? He repeated himself. "I said, did this full cart sitting here not mean anything to you?! You thought you could just go on and go ahead of me?!" And as I was staring at him with a confused look, head cocked sideways, blinking enough times to try to make his words, combined with his anger, make sense in my head, it all started to sink in. He was mad. Mad because I went in front of him while he was gone. It took a minute, but I began to gather my wits.
"You weren't here." I pointed out again.
"So you just didn't see the full cart that might indicate to you that someone was coming back?!" he shot back at me.
"No. I saw it." I replied. "But you weren't here. Someone had to go next." Up until this point I had had the perfect morning. I wasn't going to let this guy ruin it.
"It wasn't your place to go next!" he said angrily to me. "I was coming right back. I left my cart here!"
"You know, " I said to him, in as nice a way as I could humanly muster, "when I have to leave my cart in the check-out line, I just pull it over to the side so that other people can go around me if they need to." I was hoping that maybe, somehow, for some reason, that suggestion would help make him more reasonable. That perhaps the mere suggestion that someone may have had a different point of view of what proper check-out-line etiquette was could possibly help him get his undies out of the extremely tight wad that they were obviously in.
He angrily shot something back about how he was back in time to go next and how I'd cut him off, etc, etc.....
And since I was determined to hold onto the one shred of my perfect morning that I still had left, I took a step back and extended my arm in a sweeping motion, palm-side up, toward the cashier. The cashier was watching all of this go down. The first guy was long gone and she was waiting for me.
"Look," I said, "If you want to go ahead of me, by all means, please do."
He shot me a look that you wouldn't believe and said, "If you take all of your stuff off the belt then I will!" He was nasty about it. And then he added "Otherwise you're just WASTING MY TIME!"
I'm not sure what it was about that last statement -- about me wasting his time -- that finally did it. Maybe I couldn't believe that he thought his time was so much more valuable than mine that I should be expected to wait for him indefinitely, but that he should not ever be expected to be inconvenienced for 2 minutes. Maybe it was the irony that someone who had the time to spare arguing about who was next in line could be so concerned about who was, in actuality, wasting it. Maybe it was just that he'd finally managed to completely strip me of every ounce of warm glow and good will that I'd had up until that moment. Whatever it was, I think the SNAP that happened inside me was audible to anyone within a 10 foot radius.
"Sir.... She'll be through in 2 seconds...." the cashier was saying. I, in the meantime was standing completely still giving him an icy stare. "Sir...." she said again, "Really. It'll just take a minute...... Here, let me just scan this...." She picked up a roll of paper towels and started pulling it toward the scanner. It was almost happening in slow motion.
"Ohnonononononono NO!" I yelled, as I lunged my entire body across the belt and grabbed the paper towels. I didn't yank them away from her, but I held onto them so that she couldn't move them. "Didn't you hear him?" I said in the loudest, most patronizing voice I could muster. "I'm wasting HIS time!!!" She released her grip on the paper towels. "I mean, the very last thing I would ever want to do is waste HIS time! God Forbid that I should go ahead of him! His cart was holding his place in line!! What in the world could I have possibly been thinking?! There was no one actually AT his cart, but clearly I was mistaken!!!!" I was practically shouting now as I made a huge scene out of putting all my groceries back into my cart. Part of me, the infuriated part of me, couldn't believe that I was actually going to let this prick go ahead of me. But the other part, the part that had been enjoying my perfect morning, just wanted to salvage a little bit of the leisurely morning I'd had before he showed up. I just wanted to scan and bag my groceries in peace, without some gigantic a-hole huffing and puffing and breathing down my neck.
I threw the last of my items into my cart and spun to face him. I took a very deep bow and said, as patronizingly as I could, "Please, please let me know if there is anything else I can do for you today..... Is there any other way that I can assist you with your time efficiency this morning?"
"Nope. This'll do it." he said, and started unloading his cart.
He took his own sweet time too. I was so furious I was shaking. And because in 34 years I can't even begin to remember a time when I haven't absolutely had to have the last word in a confrontation, I shouted at him as he was walking away "You make sure to have a fantastic day now! I hope you make fabulous use of your EXTRA 2 MINUTES!!!!!!!!!!!!"
He said something to me over his shoulder, but I didn't hear it. I looked at the cashier, who I'm sure doesn't get to see a scene like that go down in her check-out-line every day, and said "Geeze...... What a jackass." And if I had any worries that maybe she thought I was a little bit crazy, they quickly evaporated when she replied, "You're tellin' me, honey! I saw the whole thing."
So in the end, I did actually finish my grocery shopping by 9:00 in the morning. And I did, in fact manage to recapture my 'Zippety-Do-Da' feeling a couple of hours later. After all the adrenaline had left my body. After I was back at home. After all the groceries were put away. It happened as I was taking the most fabulous, leisurely, morning walk with my family. The sunlight was warm and bright, the sky was a beautiful Carolina blue, and we all strolled, hand in hand through the neighborhood so we could play in the park. It was perfect. And time wasn't a factor at all.........
I'm Rachel Kafsky, and you've just heard The Rest Of The Story.
6 comments:
See I am always jealous of those people because the most tragic thing, the worst thing that happens to them is having to wait a few extra minutes to check out. Can you imagine a life so free of any hardships that something so little seems SO outrageous to them? Cause after all the bumps and mountains I've been through five or ten extra minutes is a breeze, a mere blip in the grand sceme of things. What an idiot.
I had so much fun reading about the guy in the grocery line (I loved your boldness in putting everything back...) that I read through your whole blog. I was thoroughly entertained and wish I could say something equal to your wit and charm...but alas my brain is saturated with pregnancy hormones and all energy goes to my uterus. I am completely dull-witted at the moment. It all just made me love and miss you more. Keep writing.
That's my girl!!!! You got him, even if he acted as though you didn't. (He didn't have a gun, did he????) I somehow knew that all the practice you've had, having the last word, mouthing off, etc---would pay off for you someday. YEAH!!! And you didn't even cry!!! (I probably would have because I would have been so ticked!) Way to go! xxoo
What an absolute nut job. I also can't believe the cashier didn't step in and do a bit more to defend the standard protocol.
(Sorry I never answered the original question. I did read that post via bloglines - but too quickly to really understand the question. Also, like Lynn, my energy and creativity is all going straight to my uterus. Hi Lynn ... long time!)
I read this out loud to Brent, "pretty good" was his response. This translates to " Rachel is a really, really , really, talented, entertaining writer! Keep it up, love ya
My dear Rachel... I think that this is not the only time I remember your having a huge problem in the supermarket. I seem to remember, that one day, years ago, I ran into your mother at the store. You were with her. Since your mother is "almost" as devilish as you... we, your mother and I, decided to make some rather loud remarks in the checkout line about the topics on the tabloids. Causing you much stress and anguish... the more you complained about how humiliated you were the louder we got. Just thought I'd remind you...
Mikey Boy
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