and I speak with the authority of a lifelong, born, bred, educated native New Yorker–they’re just off their trolleys.
Not so much for choosing to live here, although after spending a few weeks living in a more temperate climate, I’m not really getting the reasons for living here at all, but because of their complete social maladjustment. I just shopped for groceries in NYC, after two weeks of shopping for my groceries in Publix in the state of Florida, and the difference between the two stores just amazed me. I was muttering throughout the Stop ‘n’ Shop in NYC “You people are utterly batshit bonkers insane” so loud that I’m sure most people thought that I was clearly batshit bonkers insane.
With the same aisle space available (there are some stores especially in Manhattan, like Fairway, that are just demonically proportioned, but this was a big modern supermarket), shoppers were parking their carts in the middle of the aisle and leaving them there while they traipsed up and down the aisle, comparing prices, reading the nutrition labels, etc., while other shoppers were waiting to get past. This happened in about half the aisles I tried to get my cart through: some obstruction, due entirely to cluelessness, inconsideration, or batshit bonkers insanity.
This wasn’t just a bad day, either. This was typical. It’s just that, after a few weeks away from it, I noticed it as if for the first time.
New Yorkers leave their carts in the middle of aisles sideways. If they pulled their cart lengthwise, parallel to the shelves, another cart could (barely) get by, but instead they just leave them sticking out far enough to make such a passage either impossible or barely mathematically possible. Often one shopper will park his car in the aisle, leaving enough space to squeeze by, maybe, but then another shopper will come up the aisle and PARK HIS CART SIDE-BY-SIDE with the other, as both shoppers persue the nutrition labels etc., blocking the aisle quite effectively.
New Yorkers shop as if they were the only people in the supermarket, or on the planet for that mattter. I don’t think they understand the concept of other human beings.
I’m beginning to think I’m not long for this city.
