Lunch

....or, how even the simple acquisition of a meal can go so horribly wrong...

Sitting at my desk at the noonish hour, I decided that some chinese food would be an appropriate way to compensate for the unfortunateness of it being Monday. I hops in my car and drives to the local chinese restaurant, picks me up some takeout, and then makes the Initial Mistake.

See, there were all these bags of cans and bottles in my car, clinking and tinking and clunking every time I hit a bump or took a corner too sharp, and right next to the chinese restaurant is the grocery store where I can easily divest myself of said annoyances. I pull into the grocery store, park, and carry all my bags of cans into the little can return area. I puts my cans in, I takes my slips and my remaining Containers Unauthorized At This Store and go to put the latter items back in my car to go home and get recycled. As I am walking towards my car, I am treated to the rare pleasure of watching a very, very old man very, very slowly back his car right into my car.

I knocks on his window. "Excuse me!" says I. "You hit my car."
Old man: "What?"
Me: "You hit my car."
Old man: "What?"
Me: "YOU HIT MY CAR!"
Old man gets out of car very, very slowly. Walks back and looks at his car, a full two feet over the line, butted right up against my car.
Old man: "But I didn't feel anything!"
Me: "You were going very slow."
Old man: "What?"
Me: "YOU WERE GOING VERY SLOW. IT'S PROBABLY OKAY. CAN YOU PULL FORWARD SO I CAN CHECK?"
Old man: "It's so hard to find a parking space."
Me: (looks around at mostly empty parking lot) "Yes, it can be. Can you pull forward?"
Old man: "What?"
Me: "CAN YOU PULL FORWARD? I WANT TO CHECK THAT MY CAR IS OKAY."
Old man: "I'll go park somewhere else."
Old man gets in car, and very, very, very slowly drives away and parks several rows down.

My car was, indeed, undamaged.

So I puts my cans back in my car, and then have to go into the grocery store itself to cash in my little bottle-return slips. It occurs to me that I am also out of both bread and potatoes, so I grabs me a loaf of bread and some fine bakin' potatoes and I go get in the Express 12-Items-Or-Less Line.

There is a man (a different one) in front of me with an entire cartload of stuff, already about half-way checked. I put my meager two items up on the belt and wait. The cashier has an expression on her face that tells me that it's very likely that this guy has been being rude to her. I shop in this store often enough that I know most of the cashiers, and this one is one of the friendlier ones. The guy can't figure out the whole debit card machine thingie and she makes the mistake of giving him instructions -- politely, of the nature of "if you hit the green button.." and he glares at her and stabs at the green button with a palpable surliness.

In so doing he turns enough that I can see that the man is wearing a priest's collar.

The bagboy finishes bagging his significantly-more-than-twelve items and the guy doesn't even say thanks or anything to either the cashier or the bagboy, but just picks up his plastic bags out of the cart and starts to walk off, leaving his empty cart blocking the entire aisle.

At this point, it is probable that I am grumpy.

"Well!" says I, in my not-so-quiet voice. "He's just going to leave his cart in the middle of the aisle in everybody's way? How very Christian of him!"

The guy, apparently hearing me (ooops, did I speak that loud?) turns and glares at me. But he didn't come back for his cart. Asswipe.

And yeah, I know that not all Christians are rude bastards, any more or less than any other group. But I was trying to make a point, a valid point, and by golly I think I did. In any event, the cashier gave me a smile like I was Best Customer of the Day.

Then I came back to work and enjoyed my chinese food.