Tis the season to be an asshole.

I had an interesting experience today.

Like most days, battling incompetent and oblivious shoppers at large chain supermarkets is a battle. Today however, as we near the be-all, end-all of the consumerist mecca of days, was a little bit different.

I had to go to Stupidstore because I refused to tackle Wal*Mart and I sure as hell wasn't going to waste a perfect day studying (not yet anyways). It was for trivial things, a bit of hairdye, maybe a new shirt, some chapstick which I ended up forgetting anyways and some razors. It was not a big day, nor was I planning on being there for longer than half an hour. As I should have expected, it was pretty busy and with "pretty busy" days, there were a lot of stupid people wandering around.

I don't know about anyone else, but I have a strategic system of wandering. First the clothes (because I lufff them), then the personal beauty section etc, then pharmacy, then home things, then juice isle. Unlike me, unfortunately, a lot of people just aimlessly wander, staring at their lists or yelling at their children or just being plain ambiguous.

And if you know me, you'd know the one thing I can't stand is ambiguous shoppers. That is when the words "get the hell out of my way" start revolving around in my head and just to the tip of my lips.

I had managed to avoid most of these people until the time came to purchase my slag. Of course, tills were packed and inconsiderate people were everywhere. You know the type, carts way out into the main walking isle, people bickering with cashiers about prices (which I do NOT miss at all, btw)...

However, this time I didn't have a problem with anything. It was the guy standing behind me in express that made me think "what the hell is wrong with our society?" He was doing lunges.

Not full out lunging with the knee perpendicular to the ankle, but like, stretch lunges. Right. Behind. Me. I felt oddly uncomfortable as he was placing himself too close anyways, let alone while he continued his exercises... but watching him out of the corner of my eye, I was bewildered.

He was dressed in such a way to let on that he may or may not be a Nordic ski champion and he reminded me of a character from High school that a guy used to copy. This stressed me out. I don't know why but I had all these ideas of what socially acceptable behavior was and this certainly wasn't part of my running list.

Then to my left, was an old woman who was passively agressively starting a fight with the cashier who was trying to explain to her that the price on all of her reduced to clear merchandise came up on the till.

"Yes, it's 50% off"
"Well, someone should put that on the carton"
"It was regularly $0.94, it's 50% of that"
"Well I know that, but it used to be better because we used to know what we were paying for"

Oh my god. It's times like this I am so glad that I don't work in really busy stores. The infamous "Zellers Christmas of Absolute Hell" will forever remind me why I hate people around this time of year.

Don't get me wrong, I still have regular people who remind me I am not quite out of the retail vortex yet, calling the late list and having people bitch at me for things that are completely out of my control keep my ego in check.

But I feel sorry for SuperStore cashiers. Godspeed, you mighty warriors, and I appologize for the abundance of idiots that consider themselves human beings.