People are a$$holes, but Karma is a B!tch

Some people are a$$holes.

Just when I think there is a chance that everyone is inherently good and they just sometimes make evil decisions, I am presented with a dose of reality, and a friendly reminder that nope; there are some people out there that are definitely jerks.  Case in point…

It has been unseasonably warm here in Chicago, so I was planning on grilling some hamburgers that evening.  I stopped at the grocery store to pick up two buns…literally two.  I got in line to check out with my two buns (sure, go ahead, insert some stupid joke about my buns here), and the woman in front of me is already in the process of unloading her cart.  She looks back at me, sees my buns (cue joke #2), and instantly tells me to go in front of her in line.  I told her I was perfectly fine waiting my turn, but she insisted, saying “I would want someone to do this for me.  Go ahead.  It’s fine!”  I walked past her, thanking her incessantly, and proceeded to purchase my buns.  I left the store with the feeling that maybe people are good.  I mean, ‘tis the season, right?

Wrong.  Two days later I am back at the same grocery store.  I am walking around with my “everyone is awesome” attitude which was still lingering from the last positive experience I had had at the store.  I park myself in an Express check-out line – 15 items or less.  The store is incredibly crowded on this day as it was just before the holidays.  All of the lines were long, so it really didn’t matter where I went; I only had about 6 items, so an express lane seemed like the perfect spot for me.  The store manager was monitoring the chaos, and actually approached the woman across from me in the adjacent Express Lane.  Her cart did stand out from everyone else’s cart.  Why?  Because it was literally overflowing.  She definitely had way more than allowed item limit for this line.  She was in the middle of chatting on her cell phone (see digression in the next paragraph), so she wasn’t paying much attention to begin with, but the manager made his move.

As a side note: it drives me absolutely crazy when people are grocery shopping on their cell phones.  They walk through the aisles without paying any attention, slowly browsing.  That is NOT how I grocery shop.  I basically grocery shop like I am on the game show “Super Market Sweep!”   Remember that show?  I am practically running down the aisles grabbing everything I need and nothing more.  I know the lay out of the store so I design my shopping list accordingly.  I do not screw around when it comes to grocery shopping.  So there are the people who talk while shopping, and then there are the people who continue to talk while checking out, using one hand to unload a heaping shopping cart, one item at a time.  Put the phone down and unload your cart so I can get on with my day, alright!?  So keeping that in mind, you can imagine how annoyed I was with the woman across from me already.

Anyways, the manager says to the woman, “ma’am, this is actually an Express Lane…” and without missing a beat, the woman looks at him, clearly taken aback that someone would say something to her, “this is 15 items.”  He looked at her puzzled, but decided to leave her alone.  He must have known that she was a loose cannon, and I applaud him for getting the hell out of dodge!  The couple that was standing behind this snippy woman was clearly agitated that she was blatantly ignoring the established maximums for this line, but quietly kept to themselves, or so I thought.  All of a sudden I hear, “16, 17, 18, 19” and I instantly knew what was happening.  The agitated couple was counting how many items the annoying woman had in her cart, proving to her, and to everyone around, that this woman was in fact in the wrong line.  Instead of apologizing, or approaching the situation with her proverbial tail between her legs, the annoying woman chimed in with the counting, “20, 21, 22…” I could believe my eyes!  These were grown adults acting like children.

Two days earlier, I was thrilled with the fact that people have the ability to be kind and thoughtful towards one another.  Now today, I was appalled at the immaturity and the self-centeredness that was taking place, thus reaffirming the fact that people can seriously be jerks.  I am certainly not an angel all the time, but I definitely felt the whole “pay it forward” vibe come over me after the lady at the check out counter let me cut her line.  After the ridiculous display of immaturity I witnessed the next day, I still felt the desire to be a better human than they were being…but I secretly hoped that they had been keyed or a shopping cart dinged their bumper while they were in the store.

In short, be kind to one another…and let Karma take care of the a$$holes.

Happy Weekend.