Stupidity Breeds Contempt: A Genetic Tragedy in One Act

I don't know if familiarity really does breed contempt, but I DO know that STUPIDITY breeds contempt.

I told CG1 last night that I was not going to post about this. That I was only calling her to tell her about the argument I'd just had in the Walmart parking lot. That I was so NOT proud of myself.

But you know what? .... I'm still not proud of myself BUT ......I have had, Had, HAAAAADDDDD IT with stupid/lazy/ignorant people. I'm done. DONE holding my tongue. At least for now.

I bite my tongue and bite my tongue and BITE my tongue around people who:

1) Have no concept of personal space while standing in line at The Store. Bitch, BACK OFF.
2) People who are too FLIPPING lazy to go park in a parking space after dropping their obese relative at the front door of The Store. They just sit there. In the fire lane. In front of the door, BLOCKING everyone else's access.
3) People who are too IGNORANT to put the grocery buggy/cart in the designated buggy/cart FREAKING RETURN in the parking lot. They must think the carts magnetically migrate FROM their random parking spots TO the return - by MAGIC.

So you knew - YOU KNEW - that at some point, the bloody stump of my much bitten tongue (that never wags at ANYONE except Neighbor Asshole and that's ONLY when he taunts my dogs) would EVENTUALLY take on a life of its own and LASH OUT when it'd had enough.

You KNEW that some bitch would, someday, walk her buggy/cart RIGHT UP TO my front fender, look at me - while I am IN the car - and leave it there. Leaving it touching - or at least within a fraction of an inch - my fender.

I could not have backed out of that parking space without the cart 1) rolling sideways into my bumper and scratching it or 2) being pushed into the car beside me.

Let me be clear. This person walked over a space - she wasn't beside me - walked past the car between us, over to MY car and placed the cart between my car and The Car Beside Her.

THE CART RETURN WAS IN FRONT OF HER CAR. And over a space. It was kiddy-corner from her car. It was CLOSER to her car than I was.

So I GET out of the car, lock it behind me, walk over, take hold of The Cart, look at her and say, "You know, the return is less than 20 steps away." DID NOT EVEN MENTION that it was, in fact, closer to her than my car was. Did not yell. Just offered up a statement of fact.

"Uh, MA'AM, I have a CHILD in the car," she shouted.
"Well you aren't setting a very good example for that child," I responded in kind.
"YOU...." But I cut her off.
:: snap :: "People like you just piss me off. The cart return is RIGHT THERE."
"Well," she huffed, "people like you piss ME off."
"GOOD! Then maybe you'll remember this the next time so you can avoid meeting MORE people like me."
"I HAVE A CHILD."
"Just because you can't keep you LEGS together is not an excuse for rudely leaving your cart wherever the hell you like."
"Well, I'm sorry you're such an angry bitch."
"I wouldn't BE an ANGRY BITCH if people like YOU would just put things where they belong!"

She drove off.

It must be said, that when she first said she had a child, I looked into the car and saw it was a one-ish year old. Like, sitting up in a car seat, but not old enough to talk. That age. Child had not a clue what was transpiring outside the car. The air-conditioned car.

Undoubtedly, The Woman got on the phone and told everyone she knows about the crazy lady who ATTACKED her at The Store and how I wanted her to leave her baby in a hot car to DIE... And they're all tut-tutting and tisk-tisking and I DON'T CARE.

And let us understand ONE THING. And I wish I'd have thought of it as I was standing there.

The Woman had to get the child from The Store to the car... somehow. She either carried the child or she used THE BUGGY to transport him. The child was most likely in the buggy already - or worse yet, in her own damn arms. She didn't HAVE to put the kid in the car first. She COULD have unloaded the groceries, wheeled The Cart and the child the the return, left The Cart where it belonged and carried the child ten steps back to the car with her. THEN put him in his seat.

The fact that she cannot figure out the ORDER OF OPERATION involved in transferring small humans and Walmart Shit into her vehicle without breaking the rules of buggy etiquette IS NOT MY PROBLEM.

Oh, wait, BUT IT IS my problem when she parks the buggy alongside MY CAR so that I can't pull out without hitting it. Then *I* have to get involved. In HER situation. I have MY situation under control. I don't want or NEED to get involved with you.

I'm sorry, but I AM NOT SORRY. Send all the hate mail you want. I DON'T CARE.

This post is for the .001% of you who ARE, in fact, bothered by lazy, stupid Bubble People who walk around in their own FREAKING Bubble Worlds, not caring one WHIT about inconveniencing every other human around them or damaging their property.

"La, la, la...it's all about me...la-la-la." Etiquette? Protocol? Isn't Protocol, like, a cholesterol drug?

I UNDOUBTEDLY burned, in that 30-second exchange, every Karma point I had in the bank. I'm back at zero. I'm probably in negative double-digits at this point. No more $1,000 slot machine jackpots, no more green lights all the way to work, no more winning wicked cool prizes on blogs. I'll probably get audited next week.

But you know what? I FEEL BETTER. I have been nice, and turned the cheek and HELD MY TONGUE for so long...but I feel better now. And I KNOW you can't just go around saying whatever the hell you want, correcting people and telling them off whenever you like. But sometimes, just sometimes....

Anyway, MAYBE the next time Lazy Bitch wants to push her buggy up into someone's car, she'll think twice. MAYBE she actually learned something yesterday and will figure out The Order of Operation before Lazy Bitch encounters another ANGRY Bitch.

Ahhh. Yeah. No.... Probably not. ::sigh::

Image Credit: A damn funny site.