Express Yourself

Yesterday, in an attempt at being a good wife, I ran some errands for myself and for Jeffrey, then picked up a few things at the store to make a good dinner. (By "good" I mean "delicious," not healthy, because I picked up ingredients at the store to make bacon-wrapped green bean bundles. Yummy!)

I had only grabbed about 7 things, so I searched out an express lane that was 10 items or less. There were about 3 people in front of me, including the person who was almost done being checked. I assumed the line would move quickly, but soon I noticed that something was wrong.

*From this point on in the story, I will be replacing the curse words said by the individuals involved with 3rd grade insults written in italics. You're welcome.

The woman being checked at that time was huffing and sighing and generally acting annoyed as she bagged her groceries. The checker asked the woman a seemingly innocuous question (Would you like your receipt in one of the bags?) and the woman responded, "Yes. You booger-eater."

The checker, obviously upset at being insulted, said, "What did you call me?"

The woman said again, "I said you're a booger-eater."

The H.E.B. employee asked the woman if she would like to speak to a manager, and the shopper responded, in a voice positively saturated with malice, "Yeah, I would like to speak to your nerd manager because I need to tell him what a little poop face you are and that you need to be fired."

The employee called her manager over and the disgruntled woman began her expletive-laced tirade again. The manager somehow got her to stop long enough to ask what had happened. The woman then relayed the events that had led up to all this anger. She said, and I censor:

"That checker is a little piece of toe jam! I waited in this line for 5 minutes and then when I got to the front this brace face said (and she did this part in the most mocking voice), 'You can't check out here--you have too many items.' I told her that I could check out here, so then she wouldn't even bag my stupid groceries for me."

Can you believe it? She was enraged that the woman at the 10 items or less line protested her having 25 items. She was the one who was wrong!

All the while, the entire checkout line had been at a standstill. Hoping that the woman would hear me, I said loudly, "So she held us up by having too many items for the express line, and now she's holding us up with this?"

(She didn't hear me. If she had, I'd probably have a black eye, and she'd have an assault arrest on her record. That would have been awesome.)

Instead, she asked to see the manager's manager, related the story again, and finally huffed her way out the door after flinging the manager's hands off her cart when he tried to help her to her car.

What a woman.