Trolley wars

[bushbride]

The other day doing my usual grocery shop, I happened to witness several injustices to people. To give you an idea about the injustices I’ll give two examples (from the same day).

The first one came about with an old lady and her husband who were shopping. They were standing in the checkout line with their trolley and there was a lovely little lady behind them, then me. A new counter opens up and this old lady with the trolley, immediately and aggressively backs up swinging the trolley full force into the lady behind her, knocking her and her basket. The old women looked down her nose at the lady she had just run over with her trolley and then continued to change checkout lines without as much as an apology or assistance to help the poor lady she had run over.

Second example, I was buying some meat at my local butcher. I had ordered my two beef cuts which he was wrapping and getting ready to point out the chicken kiev’s (which looked very tasty). This young women yells at the top of her lungs to the butcher (who was serving me at the time), ‘how do you cook this’ pointing at the glass window. Then she points out something else, ‘how do you cook that’. The butcher looked at me concerned that this woman had forced herself into the middle of my order, but had to address her because she was being very loud and demanding.

Now for my question, in these circumstances, would you tell off (very very loudly using every swear word in the known world) the two ladies in the middle of the shopping center or do something else?

BB

[Bremen]

Now for my question, in these circumstances, would you tell off (very very loudly using every swear word in the known world) the two ladies in the middle of the shopping center or do something else?

BB

First lady: I'd help the one who was run over, and then, making sure that the other lady can hear me, I'd say: "Here, let me help you. Some people have no courtesy, they are just rude". (The key word here is courtesy, it got hammered into SG brains and they react when they hear it)

For the second one, I'd just tell her off directly. "Excuse me, it's still my turn. Unless you're the queen of england, you can wait for your turn" and then just continue to talk to the butcher, totally ignoring the girl. They're only successful because nobody wants to out-shout them.

[EADG]

I'd do a slight variation on Bremen's suggestions, but follow them in kind

I do live for these things, unfortunately, there's no shortage of these here

since there's no changing this world, have fun with it, remembering that it's small stuff, and, that it's all small stuff

[Global Citizen]

BB, I'm with the others. I would have said something similar to what Bremen would say in the first incident and the second, I would have given her one of my "if looks could kill, you'd be dead meat," or said, "excuse me, but I'm not finished here!"

[bushbride]

Ok. Thanks for the courtesy line, Bremen. I tried that yesterday and it worked a treat - although no apology was given still at least the women looked sorry for herself.

I too reacted the same way. With the first lady, I helped her, make a joke to try to make her smile, and shook my head at the old lady and man. The second lady though, I just smiled at the butcher and said to him 'it's ok you can serve her, otherwise she might be here all day'.

So what if I told you one of the ladies was not a local!?

I thought about this after the fact, and wondered are we more likely to tell our 'own kind' off?

I also know that I tend to generally let 'old' people get away with way too much...I must change my thinking.

Note to self: next time I get poked in the arm by an old woman who wants to take my seat (when there is a younger man who could stand instead of me and I am not in old peoples seat area), I will remain glued to the seat like a rock in concrete dispite the pocking!