Grumpy!

Wow! I don't know if it is all the emotional stuff in the news, the fact it is my TOM, or changing up the foods in my diet, but I have been crazy over-emotional the past couple of days. I mean, I'm almost frightened to be around me!! You know the silent "mean thoughts" you get sometimes when you are out at the store and someone almost runs into you with a cart, or parks their cart in front of the entire section of milk, or does something equally irritating? Yeah, well, those thoughts weren't so silent for me today. So, let me explain what happened; although I feel a little bit bad for being snippy, I still think this lady deserved it.

I was at the super market pushing my cart when I noticed that the store had grapes on sale. I thought they looked yummy, so I started making my way over there. Now, I'm not a fast-pace kind of gal, so I was meandering that way when BAM! a woman with a shopping cart literally sprinted the last couple of feet to the display of grapes. I was totally taken aback by this cart powerplay! She blocked me from getting to the grapes!!! I'm not generally one to think the worst of a person, so I let her pick through all the grapes while I went to grab some veggies. There were lots of grapes, no reason to get upset. She left the aisle, so I grabbed a bag of grapes and moved on. I wanted some turkey lunch meat (for quick protein), so I parked my cart in front of the deli counter. The girl that worked there asked me what I wanted and BAM that same woman shoves her cart in next to mine, actually nudging mine out of her way and demands the girl serve her first because she is in a hurry. I bit my lip, smiled at the store clerk that looked really uncomfortable and told her to go ahead and help the other lady. I made up a nice little mental story about the pushy woman.

I decided she must be a mother of 5. Her first two children were female. The oldest was 16 and the next child was 13. The girls fought constantly about everything from sharing clothes to sharing a room. They had to share a room because they lived in a 3 bedroom duplex. The other three children were triplets, and they were boys. Age 9 and always getting into fist fights with one another. They were exceptionally rambunctious children because their father had run off with a college student two years ago and they now lacked discipline in their lives......

Yeah, that was about as far as I got with the mental story when the woman pushed past me once again knocking my cart. The girl at the sales counter apologized again and got me the turkey I asked for adding a little bit extra to the order for my having been nice to her (SCORE! Niceness does pay off!) I did a quick look around in the liquor department, but nothing sparked my interest so I moved on to my last stop in the store which was to pick up some milk for my little sis. There I encountered another woman. She had a toddler in the front of her cart and she was asking the little guy what kind of milk he wanted (chocolate, white, or strawberry --where were these choices when I was a kid?!?!) He was maybe 3 years old and he was adorable jabbering away to his mom. Mom had another baby in the back of the cart that looked really young. I bet it wasn't more than 3 or 4 months old (tiny little thing dressed up in pink frills. LoL) and that little baby was angry! it was crying those gaspy little cries with an occasional bellow. I like watching people, and like I said, I wasn't in much of a hurry so I just stood back waiting to get to the milk case and while I was doing that BAM! here comes grumpy woman again. She nudged the mom's cart back. My first thought was "uh oh" because if someone touched my cart with my babies in it I think a fight might break out. hehe. the mom looked up a little bit startled, but apologized for being in the way. Okay, she was kind of in the way, but instead of saying it was okay, grumpy woman said to her and I quote "you need to learn how to control your children" OMG! As if she could control the fact that an infant was crying. This wasn't like some 6 year old throwing themselves down in the middle of an aisle throwing a fit, this was a new baby! The Mom started to apologize again... she looked so pathetic trying to hush her baby. It really looked like she was going to cry. I wanted to strangle the grumpy woman, but I figured it wasn't my place and that I didn't need to get into somebody else's business. But what happened next, I couldn't just not say anything. As grumpy woman open the door to the fridge to get her milk, the toddler boy reached out and touched her (yeah, that's how close she was to him) and she yelled at him. She told him he was a bad boy and shouldn't touch people. The boy started crying, the Mom started crying, the grumpy woman continued scolding the both of them giving a lecture on manners. I couldn't take anymore, so I stepped in.

I was raised to never be confrontational. I was always taught to turn the other cheek or to just leave a situation but ARGH!! I don't think I've ever been so angry at a complete stranger before in my life! Keeping in mind that the situation was all ready bad and that the little boy was all ready terrified, I told myself I couldn't get loud. The mom had pulled her cart back a little ways away from the woman so she could try to get between grumpy and her son, so I pushed my cart up and into the grumpy's. She was shocked and immediately turned her venom on me. I simply pointed out that she was in my way. She told me it was rude not to say "excuse me" or wait my turn. I looked at her, smiled as nicely as I could and said, "oh? like you said excuse me when you passed me to get to those grape?" she spluttered a little bit about how she was in a hurry and didn't see me there (umm...obviously she SAW me there if she remembered pushing in front of me) So I asked her how exactly she has waited her turn at the deli meat counter. She started turning really red and just kind of stuttering, so I took that time to lecture her on manners turning everything she had just been preaching back on her. I wish I could say she apologized, but she didn't. She just threw a fit and walked off saying she was going to get the manager. LoL. About this time a man walked up to talk to the mom. she has stopped crying and so had to babies. I felt a little bit bad because I was so focused on grumpy that I'd forgotten about the mom and her kids. The man that walked up was her husband, I guess he'd been getting beer when all this happened. I didn't want to get too much more involved, so I told the lady she had a very handsome son, grabbed the milk and darted out of there to the check out line.

Long, long, long story short --I was putting my groceries into my car when somebody yelled behind me. I didn't pay much attention because I was thinking to myself "what got into you!" when someone tapped me on the shoulder. The man wasn't her husband, but instead a friend. He told me that her husband was deployed overseas and had been for the past 6 months. Her husband hadn't met the newest addition to their family yet and the toddler had just called the friend "daddy" in the store. the mom was already emotional when the grumpy woman stepped in and started the fight, but he wanted to thank me for helping her.

The really, really great part of the story the guy looked kind of embarrassed but asked if there was anything he could do for me since I'd helped his friend out. I told him I was happy to help and hoped I hadn't overstepped any boundaries....he kind of blushed and mumbled "do you want me to buy you some liquor?" Hehe. He must have been going into the liquor department when I was leaving empty handed. He didn't think I was old enough to buy my own beer yet. *giggles*

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Final thought for the day....I don't agree with 99% of the things that President Bush says, but today he said that school was a sacred place and the Virginia Tech shooting had ruined that feeling of safety. I agree. I wake up every day and go to University. I don't ever think about something bad happening there and I hate the fact that it now crosses my mind from time to time. I know in time that thought will probably fade, but darn it! I have enough to think about without trying to decide if the person that sits next to me in class is "unstable"

I was in junior high and high school when all the public school shootings happened here in the US. I remember that absolute panic that it set off in school systems. We had drills where a make believe person entered the school and we had to hide. Suddenly, being caught in the halls without a pass was no longer devious fun, but now looked upon as a possibly sinister and deadly activity. I don't want that feeling to invade my college. I don't want to be told again that I have to give up freedoms that I am used to because the school is making the environment safer for me. I am tired of that being the answer.