September 10, 2020
Frontal lobe currently throbbing so I am taking a break before I smash my once socially distanced fist into someone’s ugly face.I hate laziness, I despise impatience and mean people suck balls.
I also hate shopping, especially at Metro Market and especially when it’s the self-checkout. I’m incapable of having a good experience there. Last year, when I was pregnant with Mister, I had two women completely ignore me in the floral department while picking out a bouquet for my mom on Mother’s Day. I think I cleared my throat four times before they turned around to regard me.
“Excuse me. Can I please have these two arrangements combined?” I asked.
They stared at me with bewilderment as though I just asked them to prepare some caviar and champagne for my arrival. YOU WILL REGARD ME!
“Oh I’m sorry but we don’t work in this department so I don’t think we can combine those,” replied one woman.
Why the fuck are you behind the counter then, in the floral department, on Mother’s Day?
“Excellent. Thank you,” I responded and stomped away.
They were calling to me until I got around the corner but I don’t know what they said. I just marched through to the checkout and paid for them and left. I cried for 10 minutes in my big, dumb truck and combined the fucking flowers myself.
Stupidly, I purchased flowers from the same store with the same floral setting (not calling it a department anymore because no one works there EVER and if they are back there, they probably wouldn’t help me anyway) plus a couple more items and I went to the self-checkout area. This woman who was standing there to assist anyone with issues was leaning on her elbows and slowly rolling her eyes left to right, about four blinks above sleep. I bought sushi (because it was Sushi Monday and it was ON SALE and I haven’t had any since before being pregnant and I love me some good, spicy sushi with a shazz ton of wasabi everywhere – it’s like an orgasm for your FACE!) but the correct price wasn’t coming up.
“Fuck,” I said.
Sleepy Eye Roller, less than three feet away from me, looked to the right of me and avoided eye contact.
I looked her way and swore again but louder.
She still avoided eye contact so I maneuvered my body so that she had no choice but to look at me and said, “I’m sorry. Am I disturbing you?”
She stared at me.
“What?” she finally asked.
“AM I DISTURBING YOU?”
We had a stare down that I was not going to lose.
“No,” she finally replied, “but I couldn’t hear you.”
Right. You didn’t know I was there because I’m not impressive or anything and you couldn’t hear me because I’m not loud either. Your face is a fun house full of mirrored lies! LIES!
“CAN YOU PLEASE FIX THE COST OF MY DELICIOUS SUSHI? IT’S SUPPOSED TO BE $4.99”
Made sure she heard that one. She beeped some buttons, scanned a card and made my lunch time fantasy come true. Fucking bitch.
This is why God invented Amazon.
AND THEN…
I needed some mail file labels to be redone as the processor messed them up. Instead of giving me 50 labels for 50 magazines, he gave me 50 labels each for a stack of 50 books. But he’s out on vacation so I sent it to his lead who happens to be one of the very few people in this world I’ve gotten into a tussle with.
I called her ‘honey’ last year. Several times in a row. In a varying degrees of condescension. Before hanging up on her.
Instead of assisting me to fix the issue, she scolded me for not bringing the issue up sooner.
“These were due to you 8/31 and it’s now 9/9 and you’re just bringing this to my attention now?” she barked.
“Yeah. Because your processor fucked them up once so I had to wait for new labels which took longer than anyone would expect and then I had to have the paperwork redone and then send it over to my in-plant representative to bring down to handwork.” I did not say this – I kept my cool.
I let her message it out with her manager in an email whom she included in the initial response. Which is great because I fucking LOVE that guy! He’s awesome. So I emailed him on the side and said, “She scares me.”
Steve replied, “You have no idea. I’m a pretty laid back guy but she can get me going faster than anything. We’ve had several loud ‘conversations’ over the many years I have known her.”
“Okay, cool, so you understand that I’m not going to reply because she will only anger me and anyone who angers me controls me and I’m not about to be controlled today?” And then I proceeded to tell him about our previous interaction. He laughed.
“That’s funny that you called her Honey,” he ended with.
Doesn’t matter either that she said it was MY fault the labels were fucked up because I know she’s wrong and annoying and her manager also knows she’s wrong and annoying and that’s all I need.
I’m right and you’re wrong and annoying.
HONEY.
AND FINALLY…
I stood at the counter yesterday. Cutting strawberries. I smiled. Inside and out. I don’t know what I was thinking about or why I was smiling now but I was.
Small and fleeting but I had it for a moment.