How to suck muchly

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

A how-to guide by me, I.P. Freleigh, based on real life experiences from this morning and afternoon when I ventured out of town to do some shopping.

How to make me flip you off:

Setting: a two-lane highway with a third lane jutting off to the left for drivers turning left onto an approaching freeway. I am in the left lane.

• Start out about a car length behind me, and in the lane to the right of me.
• When I put on my blinker and start to move into the second left-hand lane to merge onto the freeway, suddenly and without signaling swerve your Audi across two traffic lanes trying to get into the spot I am moving into.
• Slam on your brakes to avoid rear-ending me.
• Gesture at me like I'm the rude driver who just cut you off.
• Hope you enjoyed my middle finger. With the way you drive, you'll be seeing a lot of them.

How to make me want to swear at you

Setting: the checkout lanes at a packed Target store

• Cashier opens up one of the express lanes (10 items or less)
• As I'm getting into line for the newly-opened express lane, shove your shopping cart in front of me, because you're too good to wait for me and my pair of shorts and 6-pack of Propel.
• When it's your turn, unload your 14 items onto the belt (yes, I counted)
• After all 14 items have been unloaded onto belt, suddenly realize you've forgotten something. Dash off and return with a bottle of skin lotion, which you add to your pile.
• When cashier tells you your total, leisurely dig into your purse, pull out your wallet, and realize you don't have enough cash in there to cover your purchases
• Return wallet to purse, dig out your checkbook, and write a check.
• Of course, check does not go through. Time to call over an already too-busy front end supervisor to do a check approval.

How to make me want to slap you:

Setting: the minivan parked next to my car in the mall parking lot

• While in the process of changing your toddler's diaper, toss messy diaper under your van onto the blacktop.
• When toddler asks you why you threw the diaper there, respond "Because it's stinky". (Oh, if only we could just go around throwing our stinky things wherever we please)
• Finish changing diaper, strap toddler into car seat, and drive off--leaving behind messy diaper, along with a mound of poop-smeared baby wipes

How to make me want to start patronizing Borders/Waldenbooks more often:

Setting: the checkout at Barnes & Noble

• As I approach the counter, carry on a conversation with some coworkers behind the counter.
• Summon me to the counter not by saying "I can help you, I can hel whoever's next" or some such thing
• Instead, jerk your head back and to the side in a "come here" motion. This way you don't need to interrupt your conversation
• Speak to me only to offer you B&N's membership card, which can save me 10% (I think) off my purchases at B&N, but has a $20 annual fee, which makes it not worthy of consideration to me.
• Plop my change onto the counter after I handed you my money to pay for my book
• Resume conversation with co-workers

How to lighten my mood considerably:

Setting: The Gap, where I am purusing shirts and shorts

• Play the song "Take A Picture" by Filter over the PA
• I had forgotten how much that song totally uber-rocks.
• It is now my new favorite off-the-beaten-path song
• Thank you.

[marasbaras]

How to make me want to start patronizing Borders/Waldenbooks more often

Let me be the Grinch here and inform you that the cashiers at those stores (the ones where I've been to in Washington State) are just as bad. Not all, but enough to drive you crazy.

Save gas, buy from Amazon. It'll save your sanity and your hard-earned money.

How to make me want to swear at you

This also makes me swear at the MOD who comes over. Here's what happened to me at Wal-Mart one day in the 10 items or less lane (this was a few years ago, so some of the dialogue won't be perfect, sorry about that) ... woman runs into line with a cart with 30+ items. While waiting, her kid comes over with at least 10 more to add to the stack. I point this out to her and she just shrugs and stays in line.

She, of course, wants to pay with a check so they need a MOD. Don't they always?

When the MOD was done with the transaction, I asked the MOD: "Why the fuck did your cashier here allow that person to come through here with 14 items and then go off to get another? She should've been told to go to a normal line."

Customer behind me: "Yeah!"

MOD: (Of course, at Wal-Mart, the answer is always) "We don't want to inconvenience our customers, sir." (I've heard that more than once)

Me: "What about the LINE of customers that you're inconveniencing with this policy?"

MOD: "We're sorry for the inconvenience, sir."

Me: "What you're saying is you don't care about your customers."

MOD: "We care about our customers, sir. We don't want to inconvenience them."

Me: "So, what you're telling me is that you're a spineless manager who can't tell an individual customer to move to a regular lane to not inconvenience another dozen customers?"

Customer in front of me: "He's right."

Customer behind me: "Yeah."

MOD: "That's not what I'm saying, sir"

Me: "Sure sounds like it to me. That you either lack the will or the guts to just enforce the rules that the rest of us here are following. That you and the rest of the managerial staff here are spineless jellyfish."

MOD: "I don't have to take that, sir."

Me: "So NOW you grow a spine!"

Customer behind me giggles.

MOD: (defeated look) "I have things to do ..." (slinks off)

Me (to cashier, once I got to the front): "I hope you know none of that was directed towards you, I know you're just following your store's pathetic policy."

Cashier: "I really can't comment on that, sir." (and yet, her giant smile told me everything I needed to know)

Me: "I know."

-----------------------

Spineless managers ... scourge of shoppers AND workers.

[Andara Bledin]

How to make me want to slap you:

Setting: the minivan parked next to my car in the mall parking lot

• While in the process of changing your toddler's diaper, toss messy diaper under your van onto the blacktop.
• When toddler asks you why you threw the diaper there, respond "Because it's stinky". (Oh, if only we could just go around throwing our stinky things wherever we please)
• Finish changing diaper, strap toddler into car seat, and drive off--leaving behind messy diaper, along with a mound of poop-smeared baby wipes

For me, that would be "How to make me take down your license plate and call the local police on a charge of littering."

I can't stand litterers. Especially ones who leave nasty stuff like that.

^-.-^

[AKWalMartCartGuy]

How to make me want to slap you:

Setting: the minivan parked next to my car in the mall parking lot

• While in the process of changing your toddler's diaper, toss messy diaper under your van onto the blacktop.
• When toddler asks you why you threw the diaper there, respond "Because it's stinky". (Oh, if only we could just go around throwing our stinky things wherever we please)
• Finish changing diaper, strap toddler into car seat, and drive off--leaving behind messy diaper, along with a mound of poop-smeared baby wipes

then people drive over it, that shit gets nasty as hell

if I ever see someone with a pickup leave a diaper, it's going in the bed. un less of course I overshoot and it splatters on their window

[marasbaras]

Ew. Um ... yeah, ew.

[smileyeagle1021]

This also makes me swear at the MOD who comes over. Here's what happened to me at Wal-Mart one day in the 10 items or less lane (this was a few years ago, so some of the dialogue won't be perfect, sorry about that) ... woman runs into line with a cart with 30+ items. While waiting, her kid comes over with at least 10 more to add to the stack. I point this out to her and she just shrugs and stays in line.

She, of course, wants to pay with a check so they need a MOD. Don't they always?

When the MOD was done with the transaction, I asked the MOD: "Why the fuck did your cashier here allow that person to come through here with 14 items and then go off to get another? She should've been told to go to a normal line."



Spineless managers ... scourge of shoppers AND workers.

you'd like the Wal-Mart in South Salt Lake... they are actually enforcing the express lane rules... twice now i have seen cashiers turn people away for having too many items.
so if I must go to WM I try to make it to the South Salt Lake location.

[marasbaras]

you'd like the Wal-Mart in South Salt Lake... they are actually enforcing the express lane rules... twice now i have seen cashiers turn people away for having too many items.
so if I must go to WM I try to make it to the South Salt Lake location.

Good for them! It's time that stores learned that bowing to the whims of SCs means bad service for the rest of us!

[Gothicsmurf]

How to make me want to slap you:

Setting: the minivan parked next to my car in the mall parking lot

• While in the process of changing your toddler's diaper, toss messy diaper under your van onto the blacktop.
• When toddler asks you why you threw the diaper there, respond "Because it's stinky". (Oh, if only we could just go around throwing our stinky things wherever we please)
• Finish changing diaper, strap toddler into car seat, and drive off--leaving behind messy diaper, along with a mound of poop-smeared baby wipes

This story reminds me of something that once happened to me... Not sure if it's really approriate here as it's kind of gross... Maybe I need to sign up for Fratching and post it there...

[Difdi]

How to make me want to slap you:

Setting: the minivan parked next to my car in the mall parking lot

• While in the process of changing your toddler's diaper, toss messy diaper under your van onto the blacktop.
• When toddler asks you why you threw the diaper there, respond "Because it's stinky". (Oh, if only we could just go around throwing our stinky things wherever we please)
• Finish changing diaper, strap toddler into car seat, and drive off--leaving behind messy diaper, along with a mound of poop-smeared baby wipes

One of the tools I habitually carry with me is a collapsible thingy (I honestly don't know what the official name for such a tool is) I put together myself. It is a clamp on the end of a set of threaded-together rods (started life as a golf ball retriever, before I did unspeakable things to it with a hacksaw and a die set)) and a pump handle and pump on the other end to close the clamp (connected to it by a length of hydraulic tubing). At full extension, it's about 10 feet long and collapses down into a bundle of 18 inch sections.

I would have pulled it out, reached under the non-lady's van, and used it to hand the diaper back to her. If she refused it, I'd have simply dropped it, messy-side-down in her driver's seat. I can't stand litterbugs, and I will admit I have a bit of a vigilante streak in me.

[Apathy]

Plop my change onto the counter after I handed you my money to pay for my book

I hate that.

And, you know, everything else said in the post and replies.

[rvdammit]

In the UK mosts stores have stopped taking checks. With Debit/Credit card chip and pin or cash there's no reason to, and they're a pain in the arse.

[Rapscallion]

and they're a pain in the arse.

Dude, lube!

Rapscallion