Cringe & Facepalm

Long-time reader, first-time poster.

Checking out at Aldi today. Boomer couple behind me. The guy starts heckling the cashier, saying “Go faster, go faster!” (Note: She was scanning my items very quickly as it was.)

As Mr. Impatient is heckling, he’s also jiggling his cart forward and backward, and in doing so, he pushed the cart against my butt. I said, somewhat sharply, “Excuse me.”

He said nothing and started heckling and jiggling again, hitting me with the cart again. I said, “Sir, please stop pushing your cart into me.” He had the nerve to say, “What’s the big deal? You’ve got enough padding.” And pushed the cart against me AGAIN.

His wife had the awareness to look ashamed, though she didn’t say a word. I was speechless for a moment, then said, “That doesn’t give you the right to assault me.”

Guess “assault” was the magic word, because he finally backed up, sputtering about me being “ridiculous.”

I moved away from the register to bag my groceries, only to hear Mr. Impatient start in again with “Go faster!”

And the cashier, to her eternal credit, calmly said, “I’m not ‘going faster’; I’m denying you service. You’re being rude to me and you assaulted a customer. You can leave now.”

Of course he started yelling, but his red-faced wife just grabbed his arm and started pulling him away. Hurrah for the cashier!

That’s why they are the way they are. The greatest example I have of this is my father. I’m sad to say he has stage 4 pancreatic cancer. Pancreatic. Cancer. This is basically a death sentence. All his life he’s wanted to go to Italy. He’s never left North America and I figured it was a fear of flying but he’s flown to Alaska and Hawaii and from where he lives are longer flights than ones to Europe. I told him he should really prioritize a trip to Italy while he can still comfortably enjoy life. He told me (while wearing his TAKE AMERICA BACK bracelet) that “nowhere outside of the US is safe for Americans”….what? I have traveled out of the US, this is untrue, unless he is planning to travel to idk, Palestine? The man is dying, and has wanted to go to Italy his whole life, but won’t because Fox News told him it’s too scary and the world is out to get him. It’s really the saddest thing. Anyway, I’m reading “Walking each other home” by Ram Dass and it talks about how fear is the root of seperateness and hate. I’m sad the this entire generation gives into that fear.

I had planned on seeing Horizon yesterday. When I got to theater I was the youngest person my a good 20 to 30 years. Not surprising since it's a Kevin Costner western.

As the film began both the couple in front of me and behind me couldn't stop talking. Next thing I know two different cellphones rang and one person kept coughing so loud there was no way they even tried to cover their mouth.

I went to the box office and the manager was nice enough to exchange my ticket after I explained the situation.

Fun fact: The kids at Inside Out 2 were better behaved than those adults.

Edit: To those who asked why I didn't tell the people to shut up, I've done that before and had a person tell me that, "If I didn't like it I should move".

And I do understand that anyone can be obnoxious in a theater, but recently it has definitely been the older generation that have been rude jackasses.