A friend sent pictures of her Christmas tree when she got it set up. That got me all inspired to decorate my living room just before Thanksgiving. But the mood was doused by gray, gray skies and unseasonably cold air. I don't handle extremes of weather well. Heat gives me fever and cold and gray induce seasonal affect disorder. I just couldn't jumpstart my Christmas shopping spirit.
A news anchor mentioned an activity coming December 15, which she said was next weekend. Whoops! That's the date of my youngest son's birthday. Then, an early Christmas card reminded me I hadn't bought mine yet. Here it was Friday the 6th and I had to go out into the cold, dark world. After I got my laundry finished, I hit the road. It was already 3:30 p.m.
So, with flattened affect, I started my shopping at the Dollar Tree. First aisle in the door, I managed to solve the Christmas card problem. (I'm a really big spender). I continued around the corner where a lady was blocking the next entrance. I skipped to the next one. When said lady hit my aisle, I went back to the other where I surmised correctly I would find candy for another son and the grandson who never thanks me for anything but candy. When said aisle blocker returned there with a smirk of a smile, it became apparent she was attempting to rile me. I eventually figured out ways to avoid her as well as another person who was always in my path. Then I rounded a corner where a lady in a wheel chair was pulling a cart right down the middle. I figured she held all the rights on that aisle, so I tried the next one. Oh sigh, it was the one where people were waiting to check out of the store. I was blocked from going forward or right by a person in the center of the aisle. Said person (black) apparently had just finished an altercation with another person. The lady, white, said to her, "I'm sorry, did I just cut in front of you? I can let you in . . ." The aisle blocker glared her to silence. I was paused there waiting for her to notice and move aside or for a break in the interchange so I could ask her to let me through.
Another black lady rounded from behind me and asked several times if she would let her through. When she didn't respond, the second black lady charged right through, knocking against her so hard her body moved backward. If I had done that with my basket she would have been injured. Don't tempt me, Lord, don't tempt me.
For whatever reason, she didn't want to deal with the original person who caused her ire or the one who almost knocked her arm off. She zeroed in on me. I asked in a quiet voice if she would please excuse me and let me through. She ignored me. I waited. I tried again. I told her about the woman in the wheel chair blocking the other aisle. "May I please get through?" She said, "No, you can just wait there while I pee all over myself." I waited. By now she had at least two feet in front of her where she could have moved out of the way. She stayed. I said, "Ma'am, that lady behind you was polite to you and I am being polite . . ." She cut over me saying, "That's not being polite, saying 'May I please be excused.' You want what you want when you want it. No, you can just stand there and pee and shit all over yourself." By this time, of course, the average lay person was able to tell she was emotionally disturbed.
No telling why I didn't lose my own temper. But, as I said earlier, I was in a state of flattened affect. Then she goes into an attitude of prayer, still blocking the aisle. I said -- to Jesus, not aloud -- you don't mean this evil witch is actually pretending to pray. The standoff continued.
When a clerk announced she was opening another line, said black lady almost mowed down everyone in her path trying to get there. My trip through the store wasn't a total trauma after that. I even found a coffee mug of similar shape and color to a favorite I had recently broken. As I shopped, I laughingly told God He should tell her family not to let her out without her meds.
At the exit, a car pulled up and blocked the sidewalk. I skirted behind it and walked against the traffic to my car. The same car turned in front of me again. The driver, another black, was looking at me and laughing his behind off. The car had a sign on it asking "How is my driving?" Did he really want my answer?
Every leg of the trip, I felt like abandoning the shopping I hadn't wanted to start, but there was a reason I couldn't. I needed K-Mart to buy the birthday boy a gift. Eggs were a lot cheaper at Aldis. I had to go to Price Chopper to buy stamps and get $20 and smokes to pay my older son for work he had done for me.
At Aldis I remembered that just before Thanksgiving, 2012, I had run into another certifiable black lady in that store. All the time I was in the checkout line (about ten minutes) plus another ten while packing my groceries, there had been an empty box on the shelf. When I ran out of space in my own bags, I picked up the box and began using it. I was suddenly blind-sided by an angry black woman screaming "That's my box. You take your stuff out of there right now!" She proceeded to throw my "stuff" out on the counter. That time, I had to pray, myself. "Lord, please help me to handle this well." I turned to her and quietly asked if it were hers, why she had left it abandoned on the shelf the staff uses to provide boxes for us all.
I don't know if she had put the box there. It was in my line of view for at least twenty minutes with nobody touching it, so I don't think she had. I believe she saw it from a distance, decided she was going to use it and would start World War III to get her way. Some healthy appearing young man was carrying groceries for her and driving the car. They were parked in a handicapped slot. When she saw me outside, she began to rant and rave again. The memory of this made me joke to God that there must be a nursing home or halfway house for emotionally disturbed people somewhere in the vicinity. I did a double take. The crazy woman at the Dollar tree, the apparent car service, the crazy lady at Aldis, may mean my joke was instead a truth. What am I God, a giant magnet for the insane?
But, ladies and gentlemen out there, I have thanked the good Lord for putting you in my path today. You see, He knows me well. He expected you would be the topic of my newest blog, where readers in countries across the globe can see the true ugliness of your souls.
Be careful whom you choose taunt. And be careful how you tell this tale. Some of your listeners may actually follow my work. They will see the cowardly woman who chose not to confront the two who committed aggressive acts upon her, but chose instead to verbally assault the one who politely asked her to let her pass so she could finish her shopping. And, oh, you were so sure you were the one in the right! I'm just saying . . .
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