Har!
http://www.livejournal.com/users/theferrett/547333.html?nc=39
I agree wholeheartedly. Let me clarify by saying I *love* grocery shopping…when I have time. But usually, its something else to do on a long list of errands. But even when I am flying in and out of the store, I try to adhere to _some_ sort of courtesy. Staying to the right, letting people with 1-5 items go ahead of me when I’ve a fully loaded cart, shushing my child when she starts whining/shrieking/making that weird kid-noise that is akin to fingernails on a chalkboard.
At any rate, one of Ferret’s readers responded thusly, “
[snort.]
A problem for me is that when I go to the Big Grocery
Store, I have a LONG list, so I have to hit most of the aisles and the
perimeter. And sure enough, there’s an Oblivious right ahead of me.
Every time I pass, she somehow leapfrogs ahead, so over the course of
an hour, I’ll have to move her cart four or five times (HEY, LADY, IF
YOU WANT TO KEEP YOUR PURSE, DON’T LEAVE IT OPEN IN THE CHILD SEAT.
WHILE YOU RUN DOWN THE AISLE FOR THE ECONOMY SIZED BAG OF BARBECUE
CHEETOS.) Or I’ll almost run over her kids three separate times. Or, my
favorite, I’ll remind her toddler to sit down in the cart just as she’s
jumping out. Four or five times. Because Mommy is either too enraptured
in reading the shampoo bottle or she doens’t want to stifle the
darling’s creativity by preventing a cracked skull.”
So I felt I had to add my .02 worth. My response (or you can read it there, whichever floats your boat) :
the darling’s creativity by preventing a cracked skull.
*cackle*
The Oblivious…I’ve seen them. They exist in two formats:
Format A – nicely dressed, hair coiffed, children neatly arrayed (usually in
matching outfits). They wander the aisles, ears glued firmly to their
cell-phones, nattering away to someone about what *fucking* cheese to
buy (“Now is that the Kraft American Yellow Individually Wrapped Cheese
Food Slices or the Kraft American Yellow Individually Wrapped Cheese
Slices? Because there’s both.”) Meanwhile their child/ren are busily
pulling random items off the shelves and depositing them in other
people’s carts. (*)
Format B – slack-jawed, Kool-Aid stained,
mouth-breathers with snot-covered, dishevelled children. They wander
the aisles, ears glued to their cell-phones, screeching about so and
so’s private business. (And no, I did NOT need to hear that about
Becky-Sue-Angela, kthx.) Meanwhile, their children wander the aisles at
a dead-run, screeching in imitation of their frosted-blue-eye-shadowed,
Kroger-footed(**) mothers.
(*) Behaviour I have seen with
my own eyes. When you call them on it, they run back to their parents
who give you a Look and an eye roll.
(**) Kroger-feet = the
icky black coating that covers someone’s foot after wandering around
grocery stores/parking lots/malls without shoes.