Rules to Grocery Shop By

I had another frustrating trip to the Win-Co today which has inspired me to write down the rules of common curtesy and respect you should abide by when grocery shopping. They are as follows in no particular order:

1. To all the Moms out there, I know your job is not easy and I recognize that you are probably tired and sleep deprived as you make your way through the grocery store but this is not the time to neglect raising your children with manners. Maybe your kids are running around the store, yelling and throwing things at each other, really having a good time while everyone else is completely annoyed, partciularly that man who had to shout at your son to get him to move out of his way because he wasn't paying attention right before he knocked the tortillas off the shelf. Or maybe for no reason you are simply watching while your son is opening and closing every door in the frozen food section preventing everyone from getting to their Lean Cusines that they need.

I know kids are not always easy to tame but give it a shot and you might raise children who are polite and pay attention to the people around them.

2. For fucks sake do not take up the whole damn aisle with your shopping cart while you look for the best deal on green beans. Those aisles are narrow enough (especially with unruly brats running around) and when 3 different people have to say excuse me to get past you, you might want to re-think your aisle positioning. See it works like the road does, stay to your right and you have the middle of the aisle to pass you if you have stopped or are being slow. Do not go up the aisle on your left and make everyone ove around you. The key here is to be aware of other people and not just yourself.

3. We are a country that enjoys their personaly space, myself especially, and when that space is violated we don't really like it (at least I don't). So to the couple behind me in the checkout line, back away slowly and I won't get crazy. When I got in line I waited politely for the woman in front of me to load all her grocceries onto the belt while I made faces at her young son who was sitting in the cart eating a chocolate bar with half of it not making it to his mouth but smearing over his chubby cheeks. When she was done I started loading my groceries. The woman stands there and keeps doing the annoyed sigh thing, starts going to another line and then quickly returns and starts taping her foot, yup she was taping her mother effing foot while her and her husband stared me down. I was not taking my sweet ass time or anything but apparently I needed to be a little speedier.

When I am done loading I stand next to the atm thing to pay and the couple loads their grocceries (yeah it doesnt take as long when you have two people doing it does it?). The man then proceedes to stand 2 inches away from me while I wait for her to finish ringing me up. I shot him a look like why the hell are you so close to me right now, back away, back away, back away. It didnt register with him and he continued to breathe down my neck.

That incident was preceeded by the woman who came and stood right in front of me when I was deciding what flavored Tofu to try. Words dont do this story justice, you really need a visual, but lets just say there was no room for her there and I had to wait until she was done to get my Tofu (I went with Teriyaki btw).

(At this point I would like to thank blogger for not automatically saving my post and making me write everything again from here on)

4. If you are going to talk on your cell phone while at the grocery store I have no problems with you unless you become that person who suddenly loses his ability to stand up and drapes themselves over their cart and distractidly starts walking around the grocery store in s..l..o..w m..o..t..i..o..n, unaware of anything going on around you. Um while you were talking about what your boyfriend is doing for you for Valentines Day, which by the way sounds super duper exciting, I havent been able to pick up up my box of oatmeal because you are directly in the way and dont seem to notice. If you can handle multi tasking by all means go for it but when one activity causes you do perform another activity at the speed of a turtle with a broken leg, multi tasking may not be your thing and you should focus on one thing at a time.

Bottom line there is no reason for people to not be polite to strangers. For whatever reason I find the customers at Win Co to be more rude and oblivious then at other grocery stores, although just last week I had another close stander in line at Target. In any case common curtesy makes everyones day more pleasant, even if you are just going to pick up a few groceries.