Stupid stupid stupid

On my way to work this morning I was hungry, thirsty and out of smokes, so I stopped in to the one place I go for my junk food, tasty beverage and cancer stick needs: QuikTrip.

It was fairly busy there this morning, enough to warrant all four registers being manned at once. I got my chicken biscuit and my green tea and got in line. A dark haired, middle aged woman was in line in front of me, and as she got to the register, she recognized the blue haired woman in the next line as someone she knew...and apparently hadn't seen in a long time, because she proceeded to gab it up with this woman for a couple minutes before the clerk attempted to complete the transaction.

Wouldn't you know it, the woman forgot what she wanted, and took several seconds trying to remember. Then she pulled out a short stack of scratch-off tickets. She needed to redeem a few free tickets, and insisted to do them one at a time. Then, she waffled on whether to buy more tickets.

Everyone in the line behind her, myself included, had the same reaction: Shoulders droop, heavy sigh, eyebrows up, and trying to burn a hole in the back of her head with our stares. Meanwhile, two of the other clerks decided to go on break, causing a logjam of people in the line.

And you'd think she'd just take her tickets and go, right? NO! She grabs one of the coins out of the leave-a-penny tray and starts scratching away. One of her new tickets was obviously a winner by the high pitched "OOOOH!" she let out. When she tore the ticket away from the others, that's when I had to intervene.

I used to lose my patience in public very quickly. I've yelled at total strangers for talking in movie theaters, special-ordering food for twenty people in the drive-thru line, parking lot vultures, etc. I've calmed down a bit in recent years, though. Nowadays, I let people get away with at least three stupid things in a row before I lose it. The way I figure it, one could be an honest mistake. The second one could be a just be an aftershock, like hitting your hand on the car door after you lock the keys inside. Three mistakes in a row...in my book, that means you're too stupid to live.

However, being in a fairly merciful mood, I simply tapped the woman on the shoulder, and pointed out the people in line behind us, who by this point consisted of about fifteen people, and all of them wanted her head on a platter. She looked at them, then me, then the clerk, and then it hit her just how much she was pissing off a bunch of total strangers. Total strangers who could very well be carrying some kind of concealed weapon. Grabbing the rest of her tickets, she said, "I'll just scratch the rest of these in the car." Then she left.

I got to the counter and paid for my food, drink and smokes with exact change, and the clerk almost hugged me.