Won't you tell your dad get off my back, tell him what we said about paint it black

On my way up to Nashua today, I stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few things. Yes, I was on company time, but if it makes you feel better, I never ended up taking my lunch break. The store was pretty crowded and the lines were long. The one I chose looked to be the best option. It wasn't.

A small, elderly woman was ahead of me at the register and proceeded to gum up the works like I intuited she would once I sized her up. She was with a dumpy and colossal male I assumed was her son. At one point she pulled a wad of cash out of her wallet and a twenty dollar bill fell on the floor by my feet. She didn't notice. I picked it up and handed it to her. "Wow, an honest person", she replied. I smiled and decided against responding that it was nothing, that being of pure heart, there was no other course of action I could have taken. I was in kind of a hurry and didn't want her fawning all over me.

Almost immediately after I handed her the twenty, this little old woman proceeded to act like a complete bitch. I was deep in thought (always the profound variety with me) when I noticed the bagger, an older gentleman, pulling items out of her bags. While he was doing that, the cashier was sorting through a wad of coupons the old lady had given her. It took me a minute to figure out what the problem was. Turns out, the old crone was convinced she had bought several jars of spaghetti sauce, which explained the bagger going through all the bags. Both he and the cashier told the woman there were no jars of sauce anywhere near the register. They weren't in the bags and they didn't show up on the receipt. She must have forgot to put them in the carriage. The old bat became irate.

"I come here every week and spend money and this is the type of treatment I get!" (She made a good point. If she frequents this grocery store every week, which is absolutely unheard of, then she should get five star treatment all the way)

"I'm sorry, but the sauce isn't here", implored the cashier.

"I guess it just disappeared then", the wretched witch said with a sneer.

Her son decided to chime in at this point in an apparent attempt to defend his mother from this outrage. "This is ridiculous. You spend all this money and look what happens." (Another good point. I mean, if you're spending all this money, which, after the shitload of coupons, amounted to around eighty dollars, and the jars of sauce you damn well brought up to the register suddenly disappear, and no one seems to have a solution to the problem or give a rat's ass, well, you have every right to be abashed at such poor treatment)

At this point, the decrepit tart tried to enlist me in the outrage. She looked at me and said "Can you believe this nonsense? These people lost my sauce and they're not going to do anything about it." Despite my desire to pick her up over my shoulders and heave her through the plate glass window, I ignored her. The cashier, however, didn't have that luxury.

"I can have someone go get the jars of sauce for you, if you'd like", she said.

"Forget it, I'm tired of looking at you. I just want to pay and get out of this place"

I looked to my left. The line had grown long and the people in it looked like they were ready to attack this woman and her big dummy of a son with the type of savage ferocity not seen since the Roman Empire. Only the calm, reassuring beating of my pure heart stilled their hands. Even when the wrinkly old prune called the cashier an asshole. The poor cashier kept a calm demeanor even thenl.

The old bag's last bit of nastiness occurred when she crumpled up the coupons that were in her hand and threw them at the cashier. I really thought the cashier was going to lose it at that point - maybe thrust out her hands and strangle the life out of the musty old hag -- but she kept her cool. I nodded in approval. I felt like giving her a shoulder massage -- she needed one -- but the old bat had made me late and I couldn't spend the time making her feel better. Oddly enough, when it was turn at the register, my attitude changed and I bitched and moaned about the slight dent in the can of black beans I was purchasing. "WHAT TYPE OF OPERATION ARE YOU GRIFTERS RUNNING HERE?", I frothed in her face. "LISTEN UP, YOU LITTLE PIECE OF SHIT! IF I DON'T SEE AN UNDENTED CAN OF BLACK BEANS IN FRONT OF ME IN THE NEXT SIXTY SECONDS, I'M GOING TO TEAR OUT YOUR SPINE AND HANG YOU FROM IT!!! HAVE I MADE MYSELF CLEAR, YOU FOUL PEASANT?" Hey, she had it coming.

So, is this a case of no good deed goes unpunished, the bit about giving the old tart her money back? Look, in all seriousness, even if this woman had been even more over the top, I would've been glad I gave her her money back. To do otherwise, would have been to miss a golden opportunity at acting consciously.

And on that note, I'm going to go do some yoga and then meditate.

Peace.