Damned Woman in the Grocery Store!

So there I was, at 5:00 on a Friday evening, standing in line at the Snobville grocery store. It's less than a week until Thanksgiving, and the strain of actually having to cook is already showing on the faces of the kept women of Snobville.

Did these females spend the week trying to keep fractious 14-year-olds from tripping, elbowing, smacking, or pushing each other? Do they have 50 writers' notebooks to read between now and next Wednesday? Are they dealing with angry parents who have stopped blaming themselves for their kids' behavior and are now blaming me? Are they sitting in conference rooms until 9:30 at night trying fruitlessly to negotiate a new contract for their co-workers? No, no, no, and no. You know how they spent their week? Looking for online coupons!

On my feet pretty continuously from 7:00 in the morning, I found myself in a checkout line behind a person who had a $1.50 pie crust that she felt she should get for free, since she had an online store coupon for $1.50 off a pie crust. The cashier was completely flummoxed by the transaction. Why, I don't know. The person had the wrong brand of pie crust, it was clear as the fading daylight. But she insisted that this was the one that was on sale with the coupon!

Feeling herself being stabbed by the white-hot daggers emanating from my bloodshot eyeballs, the disgruntled customer finally said, "Never mind. Just take it off my bill." But then she persisted when the store manager came to clear things up.

Ten minutes later, two store employees and a third checker sent in to mop up the drama determined that the patron had the wrong brand of pie crust, that's why her little phone coupon would not scan.

Did I tell you that my school administration imposed a dress code on teachers this fall? We are not allowed to wear sneakers or running shoes. In other words, my feet were going numb from painful footwear, and I had six items that I had unwisely stacked on the conveyor belt.

What is it with people and online coupons? God damn it! What is more precious than time, lady? Tell me, please! Will your family go without Thanksgiving dessert if you don't get that graham cracker crust for free? We are all mortal, and you just spent almost 15 minutes arguing about a $1.50 pie crust. You may remember this on your death bed and long to go back and snatch that 15 minutes from the bin of squandered time! The worst part is, you stole 15 minutes from me -- and not 15 minutes staring at phone coupons, but 15 minutes in my easy chair, with my cramped toes finally expanding in comfy slippers! That's 15 fewer minutes of being awake, petting my cats, bagging up this week's newspapers, oh! The list goes on and on! You owe me, pie crust lady!

People get on my last nerve. They really do. I'm sick and tired of dealing with anyone who wants to argue about anything. Especially about a pie crust. Pie crust. Not even something decent and wholesome like a bagel, or a bag of Peppermint Patties. No! One of those graham cracker pie crusts encased in foil and plastic, the kind really bad cooks use for slipshod cheesecakes! She just did some group of diners a huge favor by refusing to purchase the item. That's one corner-cutting dessert they won't have to choke down and pretend to like.

Tired of teaching, tired of Snobville, tired of being tired. Tired of the Keystone pipeline rupturing. Yeah. That too.