There are glimpses of genuis here that amaze and impress me.
But I am still not sure what dropzone’s chest size has to do with any of it…
I have no answer for the eternal frustration that is modern day grocery shopping. I hate the moms with the brats; I hate the lil old ladies who need to spin out time and so read that damned labels on cans that they have bought their whole lives; I hate the young singles who come in and have obviously dressed to Find a Date in the bread aisle (or mabye it’s the deli counter, I dunno). I hate the whole thing.
I’m the crabby lady you see with the frown on her face, barreling thru to just get it DONE, already.
No, we are just more likely to put up with asshat behaviour by not saying anything about it. It is a pleasure to shop with my wife who lived the first half of her life in the San Fran area. She pretty much does a Sam Clem on them, or she rams the cart, or she takes their cart to the front of the store and leaves it there. The shock on the peoples faces is pretty amazing. Now I have to say she does give the person fair warning with first the “look”, then a hearty, “Excuse me”, before finally going postal on them. Hey, if that can of beans is more important to a person than the other people around them then I can’t see what they have to complain about if others get pissed at them for blocking the aisles.
Ooh, I’ve got one - do a Steve Martin very loud, very drawn-out “EXCUUUUUUUSE ME!”
And I am working on fostering a belief in karma so that I can believe that all the people who park in the fire lane or handicapped parking or leave their kids/dogs in the car because they’re (say it all together now) “JUST RUNNING IN” will get what they deserve one day.
Once, in Wally World, my sister and I were carefully manuvering through the outside of the electronics section cluster fuck that is always prominently displayed. Well, it was a standstill, and we couldn’t obviously get through considering the sea of people all pissed off waiting for the Big Dig to be completed. We had no cart, just our person, and wandering hands from the crowd feeling for our naughty bits.
This lady, best regarded as a mentally imbalanced decrepit scarecrow penuche packer wheeling furiously away from death, began to ram us with her cart. Just imagine a snuff film with shopping carts - a repeated withdrawl, ram, withdrawl at ludicrous speeds and brutal intensity. At first we laughed, unsure of why our ankles were begining to burst and bloom. As we turned around, though, we more than realized our ankles were only the first skinny to be destroyed by our shopping experience. This crow had the look of diaper rash in her eyes, glowering at us with vegence all the while smashing atoms with her dentures and generally being more pissed off than God after learning Ellen got her own talk show.
Both of us started shouting, with the shopping cart precussion rhythmically enticing us, things to the effect of “what kind of crazy wench would do such a thing for seemingly no reason?!”.
“Jesus, it feels like a cart is being forcefully put into our anus!”
“Wow, what kind of meds is this looney bitch taking?”
“Gee golly this is twice as much fun as prison!”
By the time we saw a break in the crowd, we ran for all it was worth. The worst part is the fact that you can almost bet that is tame when it comes to Wal Mart stories.
Actually, I’m pretty sure that a trained psychologist would suggest your last comment there is probably the healthiest, and “most centered” option of all. I’d like to give you a pat on the back if I may, and also, I’d like to bring your actions to the attention of other Doper’s in this thread.
And why? Well, it has to do with the benefits of personal empowerment. Think of it like being in a share house with a flat mate and you’re sharing the rent. We’ve all known that situation where it seems as though “we” are doing all the housework. What you do at that point is take control. Hire a friggin’ housekeeper to do your work, (and your flatmate’s) and charge your flatmate for 50% of the cost. It’s not always an ideal solution, but what’s important is the sense of self empowerment by removing the effect that someone else’s behaviour is having on you.
And that’s what you did with the sorting tray. You essentially said… your problem now asshole. Over to you.
That’s a very healthy thing to do, at a psychological level. It sends the signal that you recognise you can’t change anyone else’s behaviour, but you CAN change your reaction to it.
I’d also like to add that I’m really embarassed that I don’t have anything funny to offer. I’m quite a regular in my local shopping centre. I just can’t imagine trying one of the wonderfully funny options contained above without being given a “please don’t come back” lecture by the store management.
Littlecats and I stopped at the store today for several items. Upon encountering a cartjam at the end of one aisle, I started laughing, mentally repeating the advice of samclem. Littlecats looked at me, totally clueless and asked why I was laughing.
In a few years, you’ll be old enough for SDMB, dear.
Sorry you had such a bad experience. It is in my experience that the general public is rude, self-centered, and quite ignorant.
If someone doesn’t move their cart, I give them 2 chances. I will get right up to their cart with mine and make sure they know I’m there. If after the second “excuse me” doesn’t work, I use my cart to plow them out of the way. If they don’t like it, too bad. But no one has said anything to me as of yet. I think they’re more surpised.
But that isn’t my biggest pet-peeve in stores. It makes my skin crawl when people do not observe traffic rules in the store. If I’m walking down a main ailse (by the front near the registers and along the back where the aisle is wider) and someone “pulls out” without looking for oncoming traffic, they get plowed or a nasty comment. I once had a kid in a Wal-Mart RIDING A BIKE IN THE STORE do this to me. His parents were right behind him and saw him nearly wreck from pulling out in fromt of me from a side ailse. They said nothing. I made sure I said in a loud enough voice that I was contacting management about unsafe customers. They took off pretty fast.
People in stores drive me nuts. My husband’s temper is so short I can’t even have him come along with me unless it’s late on a Friday night. The kids in the next aisle over having a screaming competition over who could say “DAAAAAAAAAAAAAD!!!” the loudest was enough for him to forget grocery shopping.
There are no manners anymore. People are so self-riteous and have no care for the other people they have to share the store with.
Yeah, I think it’s the “too many rats in too small a cage” thing.
DancesWithCats, I know what you mean. We went over to visit with a friend of my husband’s on Friday night, and he was being kind of a dink, and I thought to myself (and told my husband later), “The Straight Dopers would eat that guy for breakfast.”
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought that about either real life or online situations. It’s all I can do sometimes to stop myself from yelling “CITE!?”
Anyhoo, I just crash through people at the local food emporium. My wife doesn’t let me push the cart anymore, so I just run vanguard and push people’s shit out of the way. If you’re so stupid that you forget that the grocery store is filled with more people than just you, you don’t even deserve an “excuse me”, you self-centred twat.
This happened to me one time, but instead of moving her cart, I grabbed some random thing out of her cart, said “Nevermind this was what I need to get.”, put it in my cart and turned around. It didn’t relally make it any easier for me, but the look on her face made it well worth it.
Just the other day I was in Publix doing the shopping. I had just turned out of one aisle, preparing to go up the soup aisle when I heard a couple of young college-age girls carrying hand baskets (wusses) stating, “I’m not going down there! It’s a traffic jam!”
That sounds like a challenge to me.
Sure enough there were at least 10 people crowding the far half of the aisle, browsing soups and juices, carts askew.
Some deft maneuvering, slight eye contact with a friendly smile and a few pardons and I had my kipper snacks.
My method for the blockers is they get one: “Excuse me?”
After that, they get an: “Excuse me!?” but said with a smile as if to say, “Excuse me! Didn’t know you had a hearing problem but now that I have your attention, could you kindly move!?”
It’s never failed before so I don’t know what I’d do if they were still no-comply…
Probably bite ‘em.
I got the “mm-hm” a couple of days ago. It’s the first time this has happened to me, so I wasn’t expecting it, and it’s really annoying. I did have barely enough room to squeeze by, so it was okay. But next time someone refuses to move out of the way, I’ll know exactly what to do.
Whenever I hear it I join right in, mm mmm and then begin any sentence with the words, “More on - the news at 11!”, “More on - that later!”, “More on - me than you!”.
That way I get to call them a moron, oh so cleverly,( they will never catch it), always makes me giggle.
