J is for ... Jumping Jack-asses!

For the MOST part, I’m a fairly patient person. I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt when they act like morons. But today? Notsomuch.

One of my biggest pet peeves is what you might call Grocery Store Check-Out Line Etiquette. If I’m in line and I see someone come up behind me with just a few things and I have four hundred things, I always offer to let them ago ahead of me. It’s a nice thing to do. I don’t start unloading my stuff until they are done unloading theirs.

Today, however, I was at the grocery store doing one of my marathon shopping trips. I was out of everything and anything, and I had to restock quite desperately. My cart was quite literally spilling over.

I started to unload my cart onto the conveyor belt thingy. The cashier person began scanning my items. I’m not 1/4 way into my cart, and the man who is behind me in line puts up the divider, starts unloading his maybe - six, maybe seven - things, crosses his arms and starts to look pissed.

Now, I still have a lot to unload and really really need the space he just took. I start to mention this to him, that maybe he could have waited or hold his stuff back a little - and he turns to leaves his items and heads to some aisle to retrieve maybe, oh I don’t know, some Good Manners (??).

While he’s gone, I move his stuff back and keep unloading.

He comes back shortly, and he gets mad that I did this. Apparently, they were out of good Manners.

I. Have. No. Space.

I’m stacking things on top of other things trying to get my stuff unloaded.

Unhappy.

All the while, I’m trying to be nice. I step over to help load my bags into the cart. He pushes my cart so far ahead now that I can’t get back to the cashier's where I need to sign my name for the bill. His arms are crossed. The man is pissed and impatient.

And finally, I joined him there and said:

“Hey, you. Excuse me, but I can see you are REALLY INTERESTED in my grocery shopping check-out experience. And since you seem to be so interested, maybe you want to go ahead and swipe your card and pay for my stuff too? Because I can’t get back to it if you’re standing there. Or, you know, you could just move back and off my tail. Finally.”

And he did.

And I was happy.

Idiot. Idiot. Idiot.

SPACE, people. SPACE. Are we really in that much of a hurry?