Grocery Grump

It's me.  I know this.  In fact, I have even come to accept it.  Life is too short to spend all that time trying to change things that can't be altered.  It should be spent stockpiling canned food and worrying about zombies.

I cannot go to the grocery store without some sort of issue.  Stuff just happens.  Conveyor belts jam.  There is an inexplicable bottleneck in the spinach section.  Children suddenly take possession of all the carts and begin ramming everything in sight.  One night, when I stopped at the market close to where I used to work in the evenings, I was even privileged to witness a game of butternut squash football.  Apparently the produce department staff are not as well supervised in the later hours of store operation.  

Stuff happens.  I accept it.  But I always think about the things I might say if I didn't have that nasty Censor Switch installed in my brain by my mom back in the formative years.  Here are some of the thoughts I had today:

To The Loving Couple:

Your love is a beautiful thing.  I can see in your eyes the years you've spent together and the many more you have yet to travel together along this crazy road we call Life.  I can tell that you are on vacation and that this little side trip to the store is just one more magical place for you to spend time in each other's company.  However, I need some chips.  I have been diligently and virtuously working out this week in what can only be called Ungodly Heat And Humidity and I feel that some nice cheddar/soy chips are my due.  If you could maybe find someplace else to stare into one another's eyes and lovingly brush the errant hairs from one another's brows, that'd be keen.  The soy chip aisle is not appropriate for this.  I presume you have rented a room somewhere around here.  Go there.

To The Delivery Staff Who Who Wait In Their Trucks Until I Arrive Then Rush In To Begin Stocking The Shelves:

You blocked my access to the Diet Mountain Dew.  No more needs to be said on this matter.  I think we understand each other.

To Those Guys Holding The Wires And Standing On Top Of The Freezers Looking Confused:

First, please tell me that you didn't do anything to mess up my frozen pepperoni pizza.  It is one of the few things I will eat and, without it, I shall surely starve.  Whatever you were doing up there, I sincerely hope that it did not involve the safety and bacterial content of my foodstuffs.  Secondly, please stop dropping wire bits on my head.  Not cool.

To The Happy, Peppy Pre-Teen Practicing Cheers:

You are fooling no one.  Real cheerleaders do not practice their cheers in the grocery store.  Especially not when shopping with their dads.  You are a cheering wannabe.  I know this because I used to practice cheers in the grocery store back when I was more on the happy/peppy end of the life spectrum.  Sort of.  I suppose I was never really all that happy/peppy.  I guess that's why I didn't make the cheering cut.  I'm certain it didn't have anything to do with my utter lack of coordination and fear of heights.

To Our Canadian Guest Who Was Pulling His Screaming Child From The Liquor Shelves:

Have you really thought this one through?  I mean, I hate to state the obvious, but alcohol is known to be a depressant and I've seen lots of people just nod off after a nip or two.  I'm just saying...

To The Checkout Lady Who Was Very Nice And Really Wanted To Be Efficient:

The speed with which you cashed me out was pretty impressive.  I could tell that you were really proud of yourself.  I almost didn't tell you that you had only scanned half my groceries before tallying the final cost for me.  It broke my heart to have to point it out...but the frozen pepperoni pizza was in that forgotten pile of grocery goods and I just couldn't leave it behind.  Your apologies over the whole thing were very kind, though.  You maybe could have stopped after the third heartfelt expression of self-loathing, but I know that you meant well.  

What can I say?  I had lots of Loving/Peppy/Shelf-Blocking/Wire-Dropping/Screaming/Checking-Out-Twice time to thing about this sort of stuff.  

Aw, heck.  I'm probably just grumpy.  I blame the knitting.  I'm not admitting to anything but there may or may not have been a circular thing being knit over the past couple of days.  It probably wasn't yet another attempt at a sweater because I have been living under a Blog Sweater Curse since opening up shop here at Sheepish Annie's and would not be seduced into that nightmare again, right?  But, if I were to be knitting a largish thing on circular needles it probably wouldn't surprise anyone to know that I found a hole in it last night.  Or that I couldn't for the life of me figure out what had happened and could only assume that I had knit something sideways.  Which is impossible, but it was the best I could come up with.  At least it was the best I could come up with until I realized that the bottom ribbing of the not-sweater was wider on one side than the other.  And figured out that I had set it down, picked it up and then, in full defiance of my years of knitting experience, proceeded to knit backwards for a row.  

It is entirely possible I did this more than once.  It's the same amount of fictional sweater ripping either way, I suppose.  Sort of.  All of it equals all of it when you are ticked off and quite grumpy.  Grumpy feels good to me.  It's familiar.  It has served me well.

Except for the whole cheerleading thing.

SA