Wednesday, September 21, 2005

It's not all about me. Actually, it seldom is.

I admit that my cart was pretty full. Zappa was with me, and I was buying food for him, as well as for Hub and me. Bear in mind that a cart full of food will last about three days in Zappa's apartment, as he can devour his way through an entire butcher's inventory in about fifteen minutes. Marsh was also having an awesome 'Buy one, get one free" sale, of which we took full advantage.

(According to my receipt, I saved $57.67 by spending $159.34.) (I also got a coupon for fifteen cents off a gallon of gas, up to ten gallons.) (At a gas station that is not in my town.)

So there we were in line to pay. In front of us was a frazzled woman with a cart piled even higher than ours. As the cashier scanned her last item, she suddenly remembered that she'd forgotten some things, and she LEFT THE REGISTER TO GO GET THEM!!!! This might be permissible when there's no line, but with a line behind her, it was not acceptable. It might have been good for her if she'd been able to hear people mumbling about her; on the other hand, she probably wouldn't have cared. She finally came back with her forgotten items, the cashier scanned them, and then. . . . this woman remembered that she'd left her purse in her car. So she left to GO GET IT.

The poor little cashier had to stand there and apologize profusely for the rudeness and general inconsideration of her customer. Heck, it wasn't HER fault. But I've been in her shoes and I know how awful it is when a customer is a rude dimbulb who inconveniences other customers.

Am I being too hardnosed? I really don't think I am. I bend over backwards (a sight to see, I might add) to be sure I am not in anyone's way wherever I go and whatever I do, probably to an obsessive psychotic degree. (I have this thing about not wishing to inconvenience anyone, ever.) When I realize that I've forgotten something after the cashier has begun to ring up my purchases, I let her finish, pay, and THEN I go back, get what I've forgotten, and stand in line again. How is any other way even passably polite?

Sure, it was a pain, especially when the kids were small, but it was a pain caused by me, all by myself, and therefore should not involve anyone else in any inconvenient way.

When my kids were tiny, and I was RIFFED from teaching for a year here, and a year there, and was actually a SAHM, I wouldn't even take them to town for lunch, etc, until the main lunch times for working people had passed. Why should I, with leisure time to spare, take up seats that a person on a strict schedule and not much time should rightly have first? I'm still that way on vacations and summers. I just refuse to inconvenience someone else if I can help it at all. And I've done my share of waiting for a table in a crowded restaurant at prime lunchtime, with less than a half hour in which to eat, while table after table was taken up by SAHM's and their kids, leisurely kicking back and visiting, eating slowly, playing with the toys, not in any hurry, and apparently not aware of all the people with very little time for lunch, some of whom would be returning to their jobs still hungry because there just weren't any tables during their only break time of the day. I'll probably really hear it for saying that, but I've been on both sides, and I say, the people with time to spare should not use very much of that time when others with NO time to spare need it.

So anyway, back to Marsh. Zappa and I loaded the groceries into the back seat of my car (the trunk is full of Belle's stereo and has been for about four months now. . . . .), drove to his apartment, and spent about ten minutes going through the sacks, putting his things together. He left with all but three small bags.

Yes. I spent over $150 and three small bags of it were mine. I love you, Zappa. Try to make it last more than a day, please.

We now have cottage cheese, some strawberry yogurt, a loaf of bread, some Karo syrup, four huge pork tenderloins (buy one, get one free) and a bottle of poppy seed dressing.

The tenderloins are in the freezer, and I hope we don't get pulled over after we eat the poppy seed dressing. It makes you test positive for drugs, you know.

And after I got home and put all that away, Hub called and wanted to know if I wanted to eat at Grecco's for supper. Duh. Best pizza in the universe? Darn right.

So we met my sweet MIL there and had some awesome pizza. On the way home, we stopped at WalMart for 'just a minute.' The chrysanthemums were marked down to fifty cents so I bought twelve to fill up the planters in the crotch garden where everything else had been allowed to dry up, turn to dust, and be overcome by tall weeds. Tomorrow before I leave for class, I'll pull out the weeds and plant the new flowers.

Haha, did you believe that? I'll probably do it on Saturday afternoon. After I get up. Around two.

My student who went back to the Gulf Coast to find his friend? He found her. She's safe.

Ramble ramble ramble.

And now, what did you learn today? I can act all mean, but I am really so wussy that I have no life until everybody else has had theirs.

Also that I really wanted to slap that woman silly, but I didn't. And I won't. But I wanted to.

The end.

P.S. I hope you are all enjoying the last day of summer!