March 21, 2008

KARMIC CRIME SPREE RAMPANT

I do a lot of nice things for a lot of people. It's part of my job. I'm supposed to be pro-actively helpful, consistently selfless, and most importantly, as Patrick Swayze taught me in Road House, I need to be nice:

All you have to do is follow three simple rules. One, never underestimate your opponent. Expect the unexpected. Two, take it outside. Never start anything inside the bar unless it's absolutely necessary. And three, be nice. If somebody gets in your face and calls you a cocksucker, I want you to be nice. Ask him to walk. Be nice. If he won't walk, walk him. But be nice. If you can't walk him, one of the others will help you, and you'll both be nice. I want you to remember that it's a job. It's nothing personal. - Dalton

And even though I'm getting paid to be helpful, I still venture outside of my scope of expertise to be of assistance to colleagues and vistors. This extends outside of work too, because it's hard to tur
n off my problem-solving switch. At Shop Rite yesterday, I committed not one, but two random acts of kindness. I saved an unattended SVU from getting smashed by a runaway BJ's cart blown by a windy act of god. (For anyone keeping score, I just said "BJ" and "blown" in the same sentence and neither referred to a sex act. See, I can be mature sometimes.) And while inside, a very short older woman asked me to fetch her a box of cavatelli from the top shelf. Despite being a troll-sized pasta-hungry ro-beast myself, I complied graciously.

Bob Odenkirk explained, "
Charity is when you do something for people while other people are watching," but I'm not telling you about my goodidity because I want a pat on the back. I'm just building you up for the abrupt change in tone that's about to occur before this sentence ends YOU UNAPPRECIATIVE MANIPULATIVE MOTHERFUCKING ERFFLINGS.

Ahem, more celebrity quotes to support my argument... Swayze further clarifies his stance: "I want you to be nice... until it's time to not be nice." I had to heed this caveat in the 4th act of my grocery shopping tragedy last night. I had just gotten in line for the express line (FYI - I only buy what I can carry in a basket) and was counting my items to make sure I was safe for the 10 items or less lane (I was at 10 exactly), when an old lady crosses in front of me and says "excuse me." I think nothing of it, as Shop Rite is horribly organized. The express lanes are usually pretty busy at that time of day and shoppers that have just entered the store often need to cross the lines to get to the pile of baskets that the slacker employees have no plans to replenish at the actual entrance. So I excused her. But she didn't pass through. She just totally cut in front of me.

And this was the second time in two weeks that I got cut by a fucking slag using the same exact technique. I was at Academy Records & CD's for
checking out the used bins. After opting not to buy the first two seasons of Penn and Teller's Bullshit on DVD, I moved over to the tall rack over by the entrance and starting Kellering* the spines up and down. People are coming in and out the door there so I am frequently being interrupted. Whatever, that comes with the turf. I return to humping the racks. A middle-aged woman comes over and says "excuse me," and naturally I back up so she can head out the door. Wrong. She just wanted to get in front of me and look at the CD's before I did. I didn't speak up and give her a piece of my mind because she smelled like schizophrenia and I didn't want to cause a disturbance with the force in such a tiny place. I put down my Sunny Day Real Estate CD and just got the fuck out of there instead, vowing to never return on a Sunday.

This old broad yesterday didn't seem mentally ill in any way, just oldie-farty. Confronting a senior citizen is not the easiest thing to do, so again, I remained tight lipped, but I determined that now was the time to not be nice. She plopped her three items on the conveyor belt and grabbed a tabloid to read while waiting. I cramped her items' personal space with my lasagna ingredients, and didn't use a separator. Gasp! The line quickly
moved and of course she decided not to buy the tabloid, but because I was up her ass, she couldn't reach the spot where she swiped it from in the first place. She had to put it down on the belt and the clerk started to swipe it. The woman then said she didn't want it. The clerk (now slacking in my favor) said "Well, you have to put it back. I don't know where it's supposed to go." What ever will she do? Don't look at me, cutter, cutter, peanut butter. I'm not helping you out now. Normally, I do not have this cold of a heart, but I have to draw my passive-aggressive line in the sand somewhere, don't I? Finally, the diplomatic chick behind me grabbed it and put it away for her. Sure, I look like the uncaring asshole, but I'm satisfied with my track record of charity. I'm sorry, but this is my new zero tolerance policy when it comes to line cutting infractions. You are lower than an A-Hole and worse than a B-hole. You are an F-minus-Hole and you will no longer get any forgiveness from this bleeding heart.

Unless you let me fuck you up a wall after my shift at the Double Douche.



Have a Bad Good Friday.

Oh, speaking of going to hell...

Keller - verb. To peruse items using
your finger as a placeholder.

PS - This will be Urban Dictionary's last chance with my words. My previous submission "Ndredth Degree" was cancelled in the editor selection process which coincidentally pissed me off to Ndredth Degree. If I don't see Kellering in the UD lexicon within a week, I'm going to burn down their fucking offices. Unnumnnummummm! and/or BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I always go to the end of the stairway line getting out of the PATH Train, and it really gets my goat when people try to cut in front of me because they can't be bothered to wait a few seconds. I use my bag to block them and don't let them in, even if it means I have to have my dick up someone's ass right in front of me. Girls, guys, old people, I don't care. Cutters are jerks!

General Dowd said...

Jagbag old people! I support your passive-aggressive asshat move.