Sometimes when we see ourselves in the actions of others it causes us to reflect a bit on how we are ourselves. Isn’t it strange how we can pinpoint the faults of others and yet our own faults are less easy to acknowledge or change. Now I must admit there have been a few times in my life where I have been difficult to be around and one thing I really can’t stand is bad customer service. I know I have embarrassed myself on more than one occasion when I don’t get good service but this wasn’t a case of poor service.

So I am picking up a few things at Publix after work today and I get to the check out lanes. They had one lane open and the express lane open. There was a woman ahead of me who was in an obvious rush. She turned to me and said that they needed to open another check out because she had frozen food. Er, duh, don’t we all have something perishable in our carts? I guess she wanted me to be in cahoots with her over them opening another lane. I wasn’t in the mood to be on the 6 o’clock news for "a dramatic bag incident at the local Publix." She then yells to one of the bag boys that they needed to open up another lane. He calls someone to the front and she asks which lane would they be opening. She moves her cart to that lane and waits for the cashier to arrive. And waits. Meanwhile I move up the line and start putting my few groceries on the belt. She is still waiting for the cashier to arrive. Finally, her cashier arrives and I am getting checked out at the same time and I overhear her telling the bag boy that she has two orders and that all the items on the first order need to be individually bagged. Geez.

I wanted so bad to get checked out before her. I am mean like that. I ended up leaving before her and as I drove out of the parking lot she still hadn’t made it out of the store. I was triumphant.

I guess the thing that bothered me about the whole situation was one of the bag boys there. Having a family of 7 to feed, I spend a lot of time at Publix and there is one bag boy I just think is sweet as pie. His name is Anthony and I think he might have a mild case of Autism. But he is just such a gentle soul it really twerked me that this woman would show her butt like that in his presence. I am sure working in the public eye he sees more than he should but I just wanted to protect him from the shrews of the world – myself included. And to that lady at Wal-Mart that I gave a hard time to: I’m sorry. To those women that were so in my way shopping while I was picking up a few things the day of Frodo's wedding: I'm sorry. And finally to the cashier that wanted to see my ID because she stated they had a lot of kids using their parents credit cards and I snarkly asked if I looked like a kid that stole his parent's credit card, I'm sorry too sorta.

~ame

on Friday, January 23, 2009

Labels: Shopping