I say "pardon me," you say "mmm-hmmmm."

I’ve tried that before, only to come back and find it missing.

Perhaps she was English. “Pardon me” is what you say here when you fart. What you should have done is warble “Sor ry” (in a loud sing-song) and smash your way past her - preferrably clipping the back of her legs with your cart as you go by.

Or to find someone’s taken stuff out of it.

These are many of the reasons I would gladly pay a little extra for a home grocery delivery service, but my town is neither large enough to support the newer ones, nor small and quaint enough to have holdover ones from the past century. :frowning:

I actually had the opposite happen to me last Thanksgiving back when I was still living out in Champaign. I was in Meijer picking up supplies to take up to my sister’s for Thanksgiving when I found my car blocked by an elderly gentleman. 1) He looked old and tired 2) He was wearing a postal uniform and 3) It looked like he was finishing up bagging his veggies so instead of asking him to move so he could get by I just decided to stop for the two minutes it would take for him to move on. He finishes up bagging his fucking vegetables and then turns to me and is like “when you finally learn English, you might want to pick up the phrase ‘excuse me.’” Then he launched into a fucking tirade about Indian outsourcing and how U of I’s engineering school has been completely taken over by Indians etc… like it is my fucking problem. So crazy. But mostly I was pissed about the English comment. It took all of my self-control not to punch him in the fucking face and after he stalked away several people around me were like “why didn’t you punch him in the face?” but I had to point out that we all kept mum b/c we didn’ t know exactly how much postal rage he really had. Along with the prosletyzers that ripped my Ganpati off of my door last year I was really pretty fed up with U-C even though stuff like that is so out of the norm.

In short, even when you try to be nice and NOT shove people out of the way, you will still be punished.

Precious, too.

If it’s not a grocery cart, it’s one of the strollers-built-for-five-that-are-as-large-as-a-car. “I had three children within 27 months so that entitles me to run over your feet with this stroller and block access to bathrooms, etc.”

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Why do some women act as tho the ability to reproduce entitles them to automatic worship? Any cat or cow can do it - it’s not that big a deal.

I nominate “mmmhmmmm” to be potentially the single most obnoxious utterance in the human repertoire.

I hope you don’t mind a hijack venting but I have a coworker who sits RIGHT NEXT THE FAX MACHINE and rarely sorts/distributes faxes. Fine - that means I (who work in another room) end up doing it most of the time.BUT what really pisses me off is whenever I give her her faxes saying “here you go” she doesn’t say “thank you” or anything. She just goes “mmhmm” and takes them. Ever since she realized how much this annoyed me she’s taken to drawing it out real long…“mmmmmmmmhmmmmmmmm.” I haven’t come up with a decent response to this. That would allow me to retain my job that is. I ended up ordering her a wall pocket to stick her faxes in so I didn’t have to deal with the petty aggravation. :rolleyes:

Maybe if you pointed out that she sounds a bit like a vibrator when she does that. Then ask pointed questions about her favorite brand and size, color, texture, etc.

Some people are just spacey. Previous experience has shown that if we lose their train of thought over what kind of pasta sauce to buy they might forget that getting pasta sauce was the reason we went to the grocery store in the first place. So naturally we’re resistant to interruptions. Sometimes too resistant.

An apology on behaf of spacey people everywhere.

Isn’t it funny , and we all do it, that we treat these shopping carts as if they are cars, and , at all costs, we maneuver around so as not to get in a fender-bender? Fuck it, I say. I go up and down aisles as if they are empty. If I’m blocked, you’re getting banged out of the way. I don’t know you, I don’t want to have a new friend, I’m coming through. To avoid confrontation, make sure you say ‘excuse me’ as you go through. The offended will get over it. Worse case scenario, and you are on the verge of (GODFORBID) reversing your direction, reach into the persons cart, pick an item that will for sure break if you drop it…eggs and milk come to mind, and have the balls to do it. Makes for interesting food shopping. ( My wife refuses to shop with me ) Why’s dat? Who’s got an attitude!?

How close is the shredder to the FAX machine? :eek:

Next time someone blocks your path just start browsing through their cart. Pick out the stuff you want and place the stuff you don’t want back on a nearby shelf.
“Hey! Quit messing with my stuff!”
Calmly state, “Have you paid for this?”
“No”
“Then it really isn’t your ‘stuff’ then, is it?” At which point pick something else out of their cart. Usually you end up in a punch up, or they hurry off looking at you as if you are insane.

Or, just run up fast behind them and see if you can stack your carts together like in the parking lot. Extra points if you attempt this while the other person is pushing their cart.

Up until two months ago, it was my job to do the grocery shopping. I really enjoyed it. I would check the flyers and make a list that would take me to a maximum of four grocery stores to do the shopping.

I think, because I was in such a good, that all the other customers that I came across treated me with the utmost respect, and I never , never had a problem with anyt other shopper. It could be that Canadian shoppers are more likely to be considerate of others. Perhaps its George Bush’s fault?

What I don’t get is compliance anger / frustration. You DO move your cart because someone asks you to and they still give you the evil eye instead of saying “thanks” or just going by neutrally. Geez sorry I had the temerity to *unknowingly *block you.

I rarely ever have any ‘rude’ encounters on shopping trips. It could be the Canadian thing, it could be the extremely cute toddler following me, valiantly trying to carry a 2 litre carton of soy milk, who knows.

I just say “Excuse me” with a polite nod. It usually works. If not, I simply move their cart out of the way and move on.

Suave, suave, very suave.
Suave like dropping your pantaloons in Westminster Cathedral, at a Royal wedding.

Perhaps this woman was hitting on panache45?

The first sentence just has me picturing the redoubtable Mr. SamClem saying this all in his best Foghorn Leghorn.

I find that swaying slightly, rolling my eyes back and uttering a barely audible, high-pitched whine is usually sufficient in these situations.

Presto, instant personal space.