A Lesson in Manners

I was planning on blogging about my current love affair with Horatio Hornblower today, but after this morning's grocery shopping adventure I'm afraid the British naval captain will have to wait his turn. I'm going to pretend my blog is a confessional this morning instead-- I have something to get off my chest. Ashlie blogged not too long ago about how sometimes she worries about dumb things she has said or done and just can't quit thinking about it. I'm the queen of that myself, but since I'd really rather not spend all day condemning my idiotic behavior, I'll just share it all with you and then let it go.

You see, I got in a tiff with a little old lady at Walmart this morning. As in we had a bit of a confrontation. I didn't mean it to happen-- it's not like I headed into the store thinking, "Let's see whose day I can ruin this morning!" And it was one of those silly things that make you want to kick yourself afterward.

We crossed paths in the meat department, which is toward the end of my shopping route. This morning I luckily only had K, but still, K is a circus performer who would love nothing better than to try and balance on the top of the load of groceries or barring that, he will settle for chucking things from the basket to the floor. Needless to say, I was trying to finish my shopping as quickly as humanly possible. The little old lady, however, was pondering the roasts with careful time and attention. Perhaps it was thoughtless of me, but I left my cart (with K) on the other side of the aisle and slipped up next to her, intending to grab a roast from the section right next to her. I also swiped one of the plastic bags from the dispenser not too far from her head. In my defense, I did say "excuse me" in a friendly way. (I'm not completely and utterly devoid of manners-- just mostly.) Well, when I pulled the bag down she whipped toward me and stared at me as if I were a green-skinned alien with tentacles instead of arms.

"You could at least say 'excuse me,'" she admonished.

Oh dear. I'm afraid I was a little taken aback, so right on cue, I opened my mouth and stuck my foot in.

"I'm sorry," I told her in a still-semi-friendly tone. "I did say 'excuse me,' didn't you hear me?" I must confess, part of my brain thought she must be teasing me. Instead, I only offended her worse.

"No, I'm deaf. I'm old," she growled back at me. That left me grasping desperately for something polite to say back. Not even an idiotic reply came to mind. Taking advantage of my silence, she launched into a lecture. "It's dangerous. You could hurt someone reaching over them like that."

Here I made an even stupider mistake. I couldn't help it. I giggled. The thought of one of those flimsy plastic bags being dangerous just struck me as hilarious. However, the little old lady was not amused along with me. She got even angrier, arguing that it is dangerous (here she reached up to tug on the bag dispenser). She insisted that she's old, she's seen a lot of dangerous things, and that thing could just come crashing down on her head.

By now this was a full-fledged confrontation, and finally I started to get irritated. Mostly I just wanted to get away from the situation. Not to mention that I had been seven feet away from my monkey toddler for several minutes, a recipe for disaster. Unfortunately, that thought led me to say another dumb thing. I even interrupted her tirade about how careless I was of other people's safety. "Look, I need to get back to my son before he falls out of that cart. That's really dangerous," I insisted, waving my arm at K.

Oops. That was like waving a red flag in front of a bull. She didn't like me trying to justify my behavior I guess. Her tirade turned into hurled accusations that I was one of those rude people who reach up to get cans above people's heads and knock cans onto them. At this point, I threw everything to the wind, grabbed a random roast and shoved it into my plastic bag, and darted back to my cart. Then I tried to get away from her as quickly as possible, while pretending that I was just a carefree normal shopper breezily checking out the frozen chicken. She called after me, "YOU ARE SO RUDE! YOU THINK YOU'RE RIGHT, BUT YOU'RE WRONG!"

Well, she was right on two counts. I did think I was right (at least about plastic bags not being dangerous), and I was being abominably rude by walking right out of the conversation and pretending I couldn't hear her.

It ruined the rest of my shopping trip, I'm afraid. Fortunately, K was as close to angelic as he ever gets at the store (only standing up in the cart half a dozen times but not hurling anything to the floor) so I was able to get finished without bursting into tears. (I admit, I was pretty darn close to it.)

Now it just seems ridiculous and entertaining, like so much else in my life. But I am sorry. If I could go back, I would humbly apologize to the poor lady at the beginning and tell her that I didn't mean to offend her. Someday I may be the little old lady with thoughtless young moms ruining my shopping trips, selfishly unaware of how rudely they are behaving. (But hopefully, I'll be able to remember my own days as a harried mother and cut them a little slack.)