Chez Toast or Toast Haus

Toast is the most from coast to coast - and this is his Blog! You'll be witness to various insignificant musings. Please take them all with a grain of salt... or curry.

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

I was inspired to blog about this due to a recent post from a friend.

I was in the grocery store with my fiance this past weekend. We had a cart full of groceries and proceeded to the checkout lane. There was nobody in front of us so I pulled my cart up and began putting my items on the belt. I got about half way down the length of the belt when another customer comes up behind me, with his baggy pants, hat turned to the side and oversized t-shirt. He has four, maybe five items. As I am still putting items on the belt, he places his stuff on the belt at the far end. I look down and it is OBVIOUS that I have WAY more stuff in the cart yet to unload than will fit on a totally empty belt, let alone the half that was left of it before he put his shit on it.

It occurs to me that everytime I've ever come up behind someone in the checkout line, I wait until they have emptied their cart before I start to put my stuff on the belt. Maybe I'm just stupid in the regard.

So... I take one of those divider sticks and put it in front of his stuff and continue to offload my cart. Well, naturally, I fill all the belt up to the point where his stuff is. Now the belt starts to move forward as the cashier starts to scan my items. Naturally, his stuff moves forward along with mine, only I have half a cart load of crap yet to put on the belt. Does he not get it? Where the F*CK am I supposed to put my stuff? Hand it to the freakin' cashier one item at a time? I have 40 cans of cat food you oblivious buffoon!

So I grab the stick and push his stuff back to make room to put more of mine. I look back and admire how he is consumed by the headlines of the National Enquirer. I doubt he can read. He must never have finished school - or even attended because I am pretty sure that in school, when you go through the cafeteria, you are taught early one that there has to be a place to put your tray down while you are moving through the line. If the child behind you does not allow enough room between his tray and yours, there will be no place to put yours and you'll have to stand there like a dipshit, holding your tray... SOUND FAMILIAR? Yeah, this grocery line is pretty similar in concept!

I have to move his stuff back about 6 times before I've unloaded my cart. I catch the eye of the cashier (who obviously picked up that lesson when she was 5 or 6 years old) who just sighs and raises her eyebrows. I'm glad she's sympathetic, though I can remember the day when a cashier would have said, "Excuse me... Sir? You'll have to hold your items until this customer is finished with the belt. Thank you." Of course, in that day, she wouldn't have had to say anything because people had common sense. And if you weren't born with it, you learned it quick. And if you couldn't learn it, they kept you in a special school and you rode the short bus and somebody ELSE went to the grocery store FOR YOU!

Between assholes in the movie theaters, assholes on the road, assholes at the grocery store and those assholes who make NO attempt whatsoever to even pick up their pace when crossing the street in front of you, even though its not a crosswalk (not to mention the fact that you were courteous enough to stop in the first place... courtesy is a TWO WAY street people), I'm beginning to wonder about people.

Its bad enough that we have to have Forrest Whitaker doing a public service announcement before each movie, reminding people to silence their cellphones... do we need him to do another one to remind parents that their children might be kicking somebodies seat and they should be supervised? Well... actually I guess not. The target audience for these announcements aren't there to see them. They're the scumbags that stroll in 15 minutes into the movie (not the previews - the MOVIE!) with six kids in tow and a whole unemployment check's worth of candy and nachos.

5 Comments:

  • At 10:00 PM, Blogger Bev said…

    Yes, common courtesy isn't so common anymore. Like you said on Allison's blog, it's one thing that you may have to teach one day. It's amazing what parents aren't passing on to their kids these days.

     
  • At 9:31 PM, Blogger starttothink said…

    Mannnn, that was awesome.

    I read it out loud to Matt (who is half way through Guitar Hero, 80s edition), and we both said "Woahhhh... well said..." at the end.

    I like the part about the special school and someone going to the grocery store for certain people.

    Maybe that's what's wrong nowadays... these people are coming out from underneath the rocks they live under. Why won't they stay there?

     
  • At 9:31 PM, Blogger starttothink said…

    This comment has been removed by the author.

     
  • At 10:08 PM, Blogger joen05 said…

    Let me tell you I definitely sympathize with you when it comes to things like that. Being a part time movie theatre manager, I can think of countless times I've had to deal with idiots who think they own the world. I'll be posting some of these experiences on my blog as they come up.

    If you don't mind, I'm adding a link to your blog on mine. Keep up the good work!

     
  • At 10:37 PM, Blogger Toast said…

    Just out of curiosity joen05 - how did you find my blog?

    And yeah, common courtesy - not "respect" as gets commonly misused these days... "You better respect me! Don't tell my kids to shut up in the theater!" - is a lost art I do believe.

    So once its all gone... what's next? Shooting people for their tennis shoes? Oh wait...

     

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