Cart Ladies

There is something about grocery shopping that basically gives me hives. Its not the utter impossibility of getting in and out in under 10 minutes because everything you need is on directly opposing sides of the store. I'm pretty sure that its not the old people who spend insane amounts of time sorting coupons when they get to the register and then bitch and moan when they turn out to have expired 2 weeks ago. I can, for the most part, even deal with the kids screeching at the top of their lungs that they NEED FROZEN CRUSTLESS PBJ SANDWICHES!!! (Who invented and then marketed those by the way? I've personally witnessed at least two incidents of near filicide over something that is, let's be reasonable here, utterly ridiculous.)

No, all of those thing contribute to my general shunning of grocery runs except in dire emergencies, but they aren't the root cause. Now, what could possibly be worse than screaming children and penny-pinching old people? Cart ladies. Yes, really. Cart ladies are oblivious to anything that doesn't directly involve themselves or their weight increasing foodstuffs (actually, much the same could be said for recent generations of Americans...but that's a whole other blog post). They stand directly in the center of all aisles, increasing your time spent on any given store trip by a minimum of 20 minutes. Get two of them on the same aisle - which is so common I'm not sure why I called it out separately - and you're basically looking at an hour long cart pileup. No amount of throat clearing, impatient fidgeting or even loudly spoken "EXCUSE ME"s is going to budge a cart lady.

Even more awesome? These same ladies will turn around and ram you in the ankle repeatedly with their carts should you be blocking their access to the donut aisle. (I know, I'm making them seem all giant and indulgent... The former is mostly for dramatic effect, but it should be noted that these pileups never happen on the vegetable aisle. My blog, I'll be mean if I wanna.) Seriously though. Unless your parallel cart parking skills are finely tuned to the point of 1" maximum clearance from the aisle walls, be prepared for full on contact. I think they consider it a sport. Or their god-given right to snacks. Whatever. I considered wearing freakin' hiking boots to the grocery store and then remembered... I don't hike. And I'm certainly not going to start, just for grocery shopping extremities protection. Oh well.

The worst part is, they are everywhere (except aforementioned veggie aisle exception) at all times of day. I have been thwarted by cart ladies grocery shopping at 2am! It is absurd, annoying, and sometimes painful. When weighed against potential permanent ankle damage, the $9.95 Safeway delivery fee seems to me a brilliant move. And now, with shopping carts popping up in stores from Target to Old Navy, these women have even more opportunity to inflict pain. Its only a matter of time before cart ladies take over my local Nordstroms or Bloomies, and I'll be stuck doing all my shopping from the comfort of my couch. Because I needed a reason to be even more antisocial...