I do what I can to be a good public citizen, I really do. I like to think that I am pretty patient, am respectful of others, and try to assist with the purposeful, smooth, and non-confrontational flow of daily life.
But today, TODAY... everything just kind of got to me. Let me give you the scenario.
After starting my afternoon by being both offended and annoyed that MissNine wet the ends of her hair in the sink and then lied to me that she took a shower, I got in my car for a little recreational shopping and the weekly grocery haul. It was a perfectly lovely sunny summer day here, and the pretty blue skies and sweet breeze while I drove was pleasant. I arrived at the discount department store in a decent mood.
My shopping there, usually also pleasant for me, started to go south almost immediately, starting with the canned music. Today, it was ALL horrible horrible horrible autotuned pop crap...one after another after another, not a one indistinguishable from the next. My head started to ache and I started to wish I had brought earbuds, earplugs, or a sledgehammer to smash the evil format musicbot back into the cruel hell from whence it arose.
Then more bad stuff happened.
I picked up a bar of soap to gently sniff it to see if I liked it, and it was so overwhelmingly scented with lavender and vanilla that it not only upset my stomach on the spot, but accelerated the Baby Headache into Full Adulthood.
I picked up a bottle of Philosophy body lotion and it was cracked on one side and leaked this kind of watery creepy mess all over my hand.
There was a very loud crying toddler.
A guy next to me looking at men's t-shirts put his whole arm over the rack while he looked, which prevented me from looking. He also smelled like onion sweat.
People left shoes on the floor in the shoe aisles so I couldn't push my cart through.
I took a dress off the rack to look at it more carefully, and a woman rushed up to me and said, "Oh, I wanted that! I'm sorry, do you mind?" I pursed my lips ever-so-slightly and handed it to her.
None of this would be enough for me to engage in public anger.
This is what did.
I had wanted to go through a particular rack of women's shirts, yet a very large woman in a bulgy, too-small romper that pulled her enormous flounder breasts down to her navel had set her cart sideways in the aisle while having a phone conversation. Her discourse was embarrassingly loud and filled with the worst expletives you could think of: lots of the regular stuff, adding in the "c" word and the "m-f" word liberally, never mind the old ladies and the little kids nearby. I kept circling back to see if she had moved on, but she never did. I had gone through the entire store, which must've taken at least 40 minutes, and she was still there, complaining heartily about bitches and assholes and assholes and bitches.
My head was pounding, my stomach was curdling, and my patience was nearly used up. I WANTED TO SEE THOSE SHIRTS, NOW. ENOUGH OF THIS.
I wheeled my cart directly up to her and stood and stared at her until she finally looked up at me.
"YOU THINK I CAN TAKE A LOOK HERE?" I growled.
Flounderina paused her phone conversation to growl back at me, "It's a free country, lady." And she continued right on with her phone rants and DID NOT MOVE.
"CAN YOU MOVE THEN???" I said, with more than a little frustration in my tightened throat.
She turned away from me and KEPT TALKING.
OK. Concealed carry laws, don't burn me, bro. I walked around and walked right up to her bloated blubby face.
Very, very quietly, but with what I think must've been a keenly demented look in my eyes, I said this:
"Get out of this aisle with your nasty mouth before I vomit my lunch down your back."
No one expects the red-headed Soccer Mom.
She hung up her phone, left her cart there, walked out of the store, and drove off. She did not return.
I looked at the shirts and found one I really liked.
© Copyright 2008- Marianne Spellman