I have space issues

There, I said it. Whether it's dealing with close-talkers, seat-hogs, or tail-gaters, I hate being around folks who have absolutely no sense of personal space. Okay, I'm not someone who needs to walk around with a 5' hoop around me to define this space, but it's just the loss of common courtesy and the obliviousness that tends to accompany this behavior that makes my blood boil.

Case in point: After Sylvain's Scout meeting last night, we went over to Meijer (which I'm quickly coming to realize is a hot-bed of looney-tunes) to pick up some groceries for tonight's knit-in I'm hosting. The shopping part was fine. I was prepared with a well-written list and actually had a pen in my purse to cross stuff off with. The checking-out part was hell. Of course, Meijer doesn't keep many lanes open at night, and I had a full-enough cart that I didn't feel like dealing with the no-limit number U-scan. After standing in line for a minute or so, the lane next to me opened. I should have passed it up, but no, into it I walked.

[Let me pause my story for a minute to tell you a little bit about a shopping quirk that I have: I like to watch my purchases being scanned. It gives me a chance to make sure that I'm being charged the right price. I've been hosed more than once by having the wrong item or size for the sale price. No matter how careful I am, these mistakes still happen to me. Sometimes, I wonder if I'm just being set-up to pick up the wrong sized item, just so that I'll pay more for something I really didn't want. Chuck's to the point where if he finds a sale flyer next to the wrong sized item, he just pulls the flyer off the shelf and places it on top of the products that are on the shelf .]

So, mistake number 1 was that the cashier was scanning as I was placing my items onto the belt. No matter how fast I moved, I couldn't put my groceries onto the belt fast enough. Mistake number 2 was the pushy-ass bitch behind me with her little cart of groceries, who grabbed a divider and started putting her stuff onto the conveyor belt before I even had a quarter of my stuff out of the cart. Before I knew it, I had quickly run out of room and was seeing her garbage groceries float past (y'know: chips and boxed macaroni & cheese; yes, Chuck's food snobbery is rubbing off on me). At that point, the nails came out. Shoving her groceries backwards onto the belt, I very brusquely said, "Listen, I need a minute here," and gave her my best "who the hell do you think you are?" glare. Snidely, she started putting her stuff back into her cart, then turned to her friend and said, "I guess I'm not supposed to unload my cart yet." Bite tongue! Bite tongue! That poor girl had no clue what kind of barrage I was ready to unleash upon her sorry, self-important ass.

The only thing that stopped me was manners. While I may have been well-justified, rudeness cannot be paid back with yelling. It's not likely that anything I could have said or done would have changed that girl's future behavior, so now that I think back about it, hopefully giving her less was actually giving her more. And, just maybe, the next time she feels like barrelling on through a line, she'll take a look around first.

Besides, I shop at Meijer a lot (two to three times a week). I recognize most of the regular employees (and even joke with a few every now and then). So, the last thing that I needed to become was a known crazy to them.

As for the knit-in: I am cooking my pants off today. I usually spend Thanksgiving with Chuck's family in Cleveland, and am on the bottom of the cooking totem pole there. As such, I'm not really expected to bring anything and don't get to flex my muscles at cooking a big dinner. With that said, tonight I'm making a Thanksgiving-like dinner. I phrase it that way b/c it's not a true Thanksgiving dinner since I'm not making any stuffing. On the menu: roasted turkey (from the Nov./Dec. 2008 Cook's Illustrated issue), stuffed portabello mushrooms (for my veggie friends), mashed potatoes, baked brie, and 2 pies (pumpkin and pecan -- paying homage to my Southern heritage), in addition to the usual salad, cheese and crackers, and wine.






Since I have the day off today, I have the "luxury" of spending the day cooking. And as my PSA today, I'll close by asking, "Have you hugged a vet today?"