Upon sitting up for several hours reading the stories on your website, I recalled one of my own. I will admit here and now that I am not the most up-to-date on etiquette, nor am I incredibly polite to those I am extremely close with, but I am nearly always polite with strangers.
On to the story! I was standing in line at a grocery store, attempting to pay for two items- a soda and a bag of chips. My cashier was nervous and shaky, obviously new, and informed me ahead of my card-swiping that they’d just gotten new card machines and she wasn’t quite sure how they worked just yet. A woman walked up in line behind me (despite the fact that there were several other lines open with no customers), and proceeded to, literally, throw her things from her basket onto the counter. I went ahead with my first card swipe.
The cashier frowned, and then turned to me with an incredibly apologetic, “Can you swipe your card again, please?”. I obliged, and noticed that the woman in line behind me heave a very audible sigh. I glanced to the side, but ignored her and chose to carry on with my business. I swiped my card again. Once again, the cashier pushed a wrong button, and she asked me to swipe my card through again. The woman behind me at this point grabbed one of her boxed items and slammed it down on the counter. This time, I turned my head, and said, “I’m really sorry about this…the machines are new, apparently,” with a very sincere and apologetic smile. I was given a very snarly smile, but I shrugged it off and went to swipe my card again. Once more, the cashier apologized profusely, to both me and the woman behind me in line.
In response, the woman behind me threw all of her things on the floor, stamped her foot, and shouted, “Well I’m sorry but I don’t have the f***ing time for this s**t!”. I stood there, astonished for a moment, and watched as she stormed out of the store, turned to the front of the store (she was easily visible through the front windows, and the check-out areas are very close to them), and got into her car, which had been left on, in the fire lane (you know, where you’re not supposed to park unless you so happen to be driving a fire truck), and with a very young child in the passenger seat (mind you, I saw the car on my way into the store, which is how I knew it was on to begin with, and I watched her enter that exact car). I was still stunned as I grabbed all of her items up from the floor and put them back in her basket.
I said to the cashier, “I’m…really sorry for her behavior…would you like me to put her things back?” To which the cashier responded, “No, no, it’s fine…I’m sorry about that, you really don’t need to do anything.” I swiped my card once more, the cashier found the appropriate button, and I was out of the grocery store. I don’t understand why you would choose to, first of all, leave your child unattended with the car on, parked in the fire lane, and then to get that disgruntled. Don’t go the grocery store if you don’t have the time to wait for a few minutes in line, and especially if you don’t have the time to park your car. 0826-10
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