I think it's maybe one benefit to my perverse nature that when other people are being rude and impatient, I suddenly turn into the most conscientious person on the planet. I mean, look, I'm not always a princess in public; I have my grouchy days too when everyone's in my way and it seems like people are purposely moving slower than they need to just to mess with me. But face to face with someone acting like a douche for no apparent reason, I tend to just melt into the opposite behavior. I don't know what that says about me, but I suspect the salespeople who have to deal with us like it.
I was in Target today when I ran into this woman who was (almost) amusing in her non-stop bitchfest. She was harassing the kid in the electronics section when I saw her for the first time. She was pissed because they didn't have in stock the right case for her last year's model Blackberry, and she couldn't seem to understand that aside from driving to the iLuv (that's the brand case Target carries for the Blackberry; it's a terrible brand name, don't you think?) warehouse and personally picking up the right one for her, there was pretty much nothing the kid could do. He suggested she try Target online, where they have a bigger selection, but she was having none of it. I overheard all this because I was waiting to ask him a question myself (our old Sony CD player that lives in our shower broke recently, and I wanted to see if there was a new version). He saw me standing there waiting, but I smiled at him and just waited until he finished with her. I was looking at the iPhone cases (lots of selection there, lady!) while I waited. When he was done, I think he was relieved to turn to me. He was super helpful, and got on the walkie-talkie to call his colleague... somewhere, to ask if he'd heard of such a thing. I guess Target no longer carries that old Sony Liv line, and they didn't have anything in the store that was similar. I thanked him for his time, walked away, and did the rest of my shopping.
Later, I was in line when that woman turned up again. The line was pretty short - there were only two people in front of me when I joined the line. I don't like to crowd people, and the woman in front of me was using up the whole counter space, so I just stood there and waited. I put down a divider for when I could load my stuff, and as space became available, loaded my stuff. That's how you do it, right? I mean, I really wasn't in a hurry. Granted, the older man checking us out was a tad bit slow, but he combined it with the most courteous Southern gentleman attitude that I really didn't care. And gosh, I'll admit it: I'm a little bit in dreamland today. It's just one of those lazy days. The woman behind me, on the other hand, was sighing a lot and muttering "Come on, come on" under her breath. I think she expected me to move up when the woman in front of me was paying, but the way I see it, that space between where you stand to pay and the top of the little conveyor belt thing is personal space. And - she still didn't have any room to put her stuff because my stuff was still sitting there, so all my moving up would do is give her an opportunity to get closer to me. Was that what she was after? If so, well, sorry, but no thanks.
So. All her hemming and hawing got her was me being super nice back to the sweet gray haired man ringing me up. We were both so gracious it was like a thank you festival, and it's possible that my transaction took a slight amount of time longer than is truly necessary. As I stood at the register waiting to pay, I turned my head back to her and smiled. She only moved her cart closer into "my" space and ignored me. Whatever.
Have a nice day, grumpy.
P.S. Target no longer has the same Sony CD player we have, but they do have this one, online. It's kind of nice, and would satisfy our need to listen to NPR in the shower every morning, but no more CD's. I'm pretty sure we could live with that. Here's the one we already have (except ours is green).
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