I really need to start writing things down.
Anyway, in lieu of the whatever-it-was, I thought I'd tell you about the unbelievable woman who was in front of me at the grocery store checkout yesterday. And Maam? If you happen to recognise yourself in any of this... well, good. You struck me as the kind of person who may need to see herself as others see her. After all, it's been thought a good thing in the past (think O wad some Power the giftie gie us...).
So. Picture the line at the till. She'd put her things on the till's conveyor belt, but there hadn't been enough room so she'd put the last few things on the very edge of the platform. That's not the problem, by the way. I'm sure most of us have done that with a big load while we're waiting for the conveyor to shift things forward. Most of us keep an eye on things, though. This woman didn't.
Surprisingly, that's still not the problem.
The problem begins with the fact that one of the things she'd left teetering on the edge was a dropper bottle filled with what looked like some herbal extract or other. She left it there and moved forward to the cashier without making sure that it had made it onto the conveyor belt. And what happened? The conveyor moved, and the vibration caused the bottle to fall off and smash into a big messy... well, mess.
Still not the problem. Things happen, right?
The problem comes with the reaction. First, she acted as though she hadn't noticed a glass bottle smashing on the floor. Then she didn't tell the cashier about it so it could be cleaned up. I had to. Then -- and this is the part that, as an ex-cashier myself, really gets to me -- she acted as though it had nothing to do with her. Didn't even acknowledge it. Didn't offer to pay for it, because apparently the bottle was suicidal or something and had decided to leap off of the till on its own. It was like the bottle didn't even exist in her world, except that she then stalled the entire line so that she could go get another bottle of what was probably fairly expensive extract, judging from the label.
And what bugs me the most is that she likely saw absolutely nothing wrong with her reaction. Hell, there may be some of you reading this that see nothing wrong with the reaction. And that? Pisses me off.
It seems like, for a certain segment of the population, it's not necessary to acknowledge any sort of responsibility for even small things. I'm not sure when that started to happen, but it's really kind of depressing. Are we that much of an urban automaton as a society that things happen, no one cares, and we all just shrug it off? That's the same sort of mindset that leaves accident victims bleeding by the sides of busy roads, you know. I didn't see it, and if I didn't see it I don't have to do anything about it.
Gah.
Now, I'd expect that a few of my two fans are looking at this as a total overreaction to the situation, but I guess I look at this sort of thing as a kind of symptom of a disease. In a way, at least. Lots of little occurrences of this type start to add up to a great big WHY DO ALL OF YOU PEOPLE SUCK??? in my world, I'm afraid.
And some of you may see that as a problem with me, and I suppose you're welcome to your own thoughts on that.
But would it have hurt her to at least say a quick sorry for the greasy gunk I ended up having to clean off of my shoes?
Yeah, people suck.
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And on that happy note, I won't be around the computer for the next couple of days. Maybe I'll be in a better mood by Monday? Oh, I'll give it the old college try. After all, I don't want to have to put myself into my own people suck category, right?
Incidentally, I do have a sometimes people don't suck label, too. It... doesn't have many entries in it. Go ahead, world. I dare you. Do something to change that for me, ok?
Have a good weekend, everybody. See you Monday, even if it might be brief.
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