A blogger buddy of mine blogged a couple of weeks ago about one of her pet peeves: people in line in front of you who relished in making you wait while they chat, asked a plethora of unless questions, and stall, stall, stall, just to prove they can.
A similar situation happened to me on Saturday, and I’m sure it’s happened to you many times. I was in Safeway, purchasing a tiny bag of chips and a tiny container of olives. The check-out lines were long; no surprise. This woman with a cart load of groceries sped up and cut in front of me. And that reminded me of another time when something similar happened.
It was a few weeks before Christmas, my husband and I were staying in a cute, little motel in Woodstock, New Hampshire. In case you didn’t know, New Hampshire has incredibly cheap prices on alcohol, and I don’t mean the rubbing kind. They also don’t have sales tax.
Across the street was a liquor store and I wanted one of those mini bottles of brandy to go with my ice cream I’d planned to have after dinner.
I entered the store shortly after a busload of tourists from New York. Dozens of people were inside pushing grocery carts full of bottles. I soon learned that these liquor field trips were common occurrences at this time of year. New Yorkers were crossing the border to make gift purchases.
Again, I was walking to the check-out counter with my tiny bottle of .99 brandy when this woman with a mountain of alcohol of various sorts almost broke her neck pushing in front of me to get in line. I was dumbstruck. How could she fail to see me with my little bottle?
But I figured she was on a mission, and I decided to practice my patience. Ten minutes later, the clerk rang her up at nearly $500.00. She paid with a credit card and then began the long task of finding the right box for the right bottle so her Christmas wrapping would be easy. She had the clerk (the only one in the store) run to the back room several times to get exactly what she wanted. Then, she asked him to help her pack up the bottles in their cozy boxes. This he had to do several time because she kept changing her mind.
You’re probably wondering why I just didn’t set the brandy down and leave. I was bond and determined to watch the show—for that’s was it was—a show, and she was the star! Once everything was packed and paid for, she’d remembered she’d forgotten the case of wine for Cousin Frances. The clerk ran to the back, she paid, and finally headed out the door.
When I sat my bottle down, he smiled at me and said, “You want to drink that here, or take it with you?”
