One Day This Will Be Me. Until Then. White-hot Hate.

I nearly caused a scene at my pharmacy yesterday.  Have you ever seen security start to hover because they know you are about to pop a gasket?  That was me.  They were ready...both of them...combined age of 162, armed with--well--nothing.  Luckily it never came to blows.

I am 3rd or 4th in line, scanning the headlines of the magazine racks, not really moving, when out of the corner of my eye I can see the other lane chugging right along.  Finally, when it comes down to me being in 3rd place in my line, or jumping to 2nd across the aisle, my fate seemed clear.  So I make my move.  Immediately another person takes my former spot, then another,  Suckers.

So I'm standing in the on-deck circle of the check-out--with only a birthday card.  Waiting. Then out of the corner of my OTHER eye I see my original place in line is now up at the register.  Oh well, I'm next here so no big deal.  But I find myself looking up (well, down technically) at the oldest, and I mean there-are-mummies-in-the-Putnam-she-changed-the-diapers-of, OLDEST shopper I have ever seen. Who uses those tiny baskets that hold slightly more than your two hands?  You guessed it.  She was.  Slowly she hands over each morsel as if Fabergé himself had painted them...Gee whiz, Girlie!  Pack of gum, denture rinse, some product with the word Urine on it, and a can of hairspray.  Either this was a senior-citizen terrorist on a jihad, or there was going to be one helluva night at the museum!

The cashier told Mt. Olive the total, and you would have thought the idea of paying for these items was some kind of new trend. It caught her completely off guard.  Slowly, she creaks open her purse, and delivers her wallet like a baby on to the counter.  "How much again?" She asks while pulling out her credit card.  Who CARES how much, swipe it and GO!  Along with her card, she pulls out what must have been 4 Presidents worth of coupons, none that applied to this purchase.  Of course we didn't find out that nugget of info until 2016.  All the while this gal is sifting through her life story of saving .15 cents, I'm eyeballing the other check-out line, which has started to look like the fast lane at a construction zone, with me trying to sneak in...no such luck.  "Ma'am, you have to slide your card the other way..."  Do you have any idea how many "Other ways" there are to slide a card through that machine that are incorrect?  So many that the cashier, who at first like me was taken with the cutesy old-lady, grabs the card, and the machine, and swipes it.  Feeling the end of the waiting, I discreetly lay my card on the counter (UPC code facing up, as if any amount of help here will change my fate.)

"Where do I sign?  I need a pen."  FOR THE LOVE OF GOD there is no pen...p-l-e-a-s-e just pick up the stylus and write something, anything.  They're putting out the 4th of J

uly decorations now....I can see Uncle Sam in the corner, waving at me...she looks over and says, "That's not Uncle Sam, that's MY NEPHEW Sam."  She was old, I tell you.