Yesterday I took my lunch hour to go to PetSmart for dog and cat food. I did this so that it wouldn't be part of the one hundred chores already lined up for this weekend. Even though the staple of the critters' diet is dry, we supplement it with canned. I really dislike shopping so when I take the time to do this I purchase enough to last a couple of weeks. Since I have to check the ash content on the cans for the cats and Nigel gets itchy from certain brands, it does end up taking a bit of time to accomplish this.
The checkers at the registers may put on a happy face when I show up in their queue, but they only do that because they get paid to act that way. If anyone gets in line behind me, they aren't required to act happy. Sometimes they don't even try to act polite. Some are so annoyed that they have to wait their turn for service they will stand right on top of me making their physical presence known while their purse bangs into me...accidentally, of course. I have had mothers push their kids up against me. Notice my examples if this childish behavior are all women? A man may be annoyed but I not once had one act in a passive-aggressive way. He will either stand there with the patience of Job yet again suffering because of a woman or he will be stone faced not wanting to upset the apple cart no matter how steamed he is feeling. Yet again another difference between the sexes.
I had finally checked out, made it to my car, and noticed something odd while setting the bags full of cans in my open trunk. There was a woman walking behind an empty cart in a meandering fashion. I watched her for a couple of seconds as she walked between cars looking around and it hit me that she was looking for one of those parking lot shopping cart depositories.
I always feel sorry for the person responsible for rounding the carts up and returning them to the store. The carts are either slammed in there every which way or they are lined up linked together 5 feet past the end of the enclosure. This is a sucky job especially when the weather is crap so I always properly take care of my cart.
As I finish loading the trunk I'm thinking to myself that sooner or later Miss Brilliant will realize that these cart kiosks are few and far between and since she is so close to the store anyway it would behoove her to just take a few more steps and take it back to the building. I close my trunk and start back to the store to return my cart. Half way there I see an empty cart sitting at the end of a car. I don't see anyone near it so I figure the person is in the last throws of their shopping experience probably knee deep in their car arranging their goods.
I've already checked my watch a thousand times to make sure I won't be late getting back to work. I have two more rows of cars left when I hear someone call, "Ma'am!" Guess who it was.
If she had been using crutches, in a wheelchair, or a little old lady or man, I would have said yes when she popped out from between cars asking in the most sickly sweet manipulative way my teeth hurt if I am taking my cart back to the store would I take her cart back for her, too. I yelled over my shoulder that I was late for work and kept walking.
Was she just hiding waiting for someone to walk by? The time it took to do that she could have returned the cart herself and been on her way. Call me a bitch, but that kind of behavior does not warrant a reward. I am not required to complete her tasks nor do I feel any guilt over it.
Believe it or not, this is the second time a woman has asked this of me. The first time I played the martyr and was pissed at myself for it. This time I did what I felt was right.
Isn't it amazing that as I crossed the threshold from store back to parking lot she and I passed each other as she was walking her cart back to it's home? Now....how hard was that?
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