The Trials of Dodging the obstacle course of old people, the crippled, and morbidly obese in rascal scooters

My line of work requires much time spent in retail stores, primarily grocery stores. I am always fascinated by the individuals who for whatever reason, are able to go to the grocery store in the middle of the day...and no...not everyone works nights.

The store is predominately infested with stay at home moms, but you will get lazy welfare rat in there. Also, the laid off have been showing up lately. But these folks are generally not an obstacle and I don't mind sharing the space with them at all.

However, there are three shoppers that one must avoid at all cost, whether moving product, setting up displays, or picking your ass. They make up about a third of the shopper demographic. Old people/crippled/morbidly obese on scooters.

Ok, old people...it's not their fault. Their senses have been failing the last 20 years. They have no awareness. I can be carrying a ton of shit and there will be an old couple just standing in the middle of the aisle squinting at the prices of the green beans and not have a clue. It is a pure death to enter a Marc's store right after opening. It is a traffic jam of old, very viscous, ancient flesh...top speed of .00000000000000003 mph. It is stunning. Old people are always in your way. And when you excuse yourself, they can't hear you. Even though I'm not a store employee, I am often confused for working in the store. Old people don't understand the concept that I don't work for the store. They line up around me like I'm Santa at the mall to ask me questions. I'm a good person. I do my best. If they ask me where the batteries are and I know, I tell them. If I don't have an answer for them, I use our company's official disclaimer that I don't work for the store. I try to point out the nearest employee of the store. But many, many old people don't have much of a mind left. Once, a woman demanded of me angrily where the playing cards were. I identified myself as not an employee of the store and that I'd do my best to help...I even stopped what I was doing and went and asked the customer service desk for her. I came back and told her that the woman at the front desk said aisle 8. So, she shuffled off. About 30 mins later, she returned...irate with me. By the way, I looked in aisle 12 and they weren't there! I'm not coming to your shitty store anymore. This is the last time. She then got a manager and complained to him about my service. Again, I told her several times that I didn't work for the store. I even gave her as much help as I could have, even finding out which aisle the playing cards were in, yet she went to the wrong one. After she left, th e manager and I had a laugh.

When you see one of the crippled in a scooter, you always have to wonder about their injury. I know some of those fucks are just lazy. Some have foot pain, some have braces and casts. Those are obvious.

There's another type of cripple, though. The morbidly obese...these people are the most heinous of all. I understand that it is the American way to be a glutton, but if your gluttony has rendered you unable to walk b/c you are so fucking fat...wow. Once, my fiancee and I went grocery shopping after one of her many knee surgeries. She was particularly tired today and didn't want to crutch around like she normally does and before we entered the store, I had convinced her to try one of the scooters. Well, of course, we walk in and all the scooters were taken. So, here we are shopping and she's crutching around like a crazy ass. Sure enough, a morbidly obese 50ish woman saddles up to us and I hear a squeaky voice below me, "you are such a bad man...you are evil, forcing her to crutch around here." There was nothing wrong with this woman. No brace. No cast. She was just a tad over 450 lbs. That was her only problem. I informed her very politely that the store was out of scooters b/c lazy people like herself had taken the scooters away from those who really needed them. She huffed and rrrrrrrrrrr accelerated away!

It's amazing how rude people are in a grocery store. Most people take their time to shop, unfortunately, I'm in there to do my job and make money. It's my place of business. So, having a bunch of people moseying around can cause big delays. When I'm in the stores, I'm moving quick...boom, boom, boom...I got a stride called a retail walk.

Yet, there are those that don't understand and just get in my way regardless. I was in a frozen section the other day at a Meijer. The aisle was about three shopping carts wide. I have all my materials in my cart and I'm walking towards an oblivious, ditsy, trophy wife walking in the middle of the aisle. We are closing in on each other, as I stay to the right. She stays middle...at about 8 ft, she stops the cart, angling diagonally, blocking 2 of the 3 "lanes", holding up people behind her. She then looks at me, makes eye contact, and cuts in front of me and opens the freezer door inches from my cart that was barreling down on her. It would have been too much to wait 2 seconds for me to past. She half assed a sorry. I retorted with a sarcastic, thanks.

I had all kinds of shit falling out of my cart today...lots of stuff for a display, yet there was some old hillbilly pauper just standing in the middle of the aisle pretending to be solely focused on the cereal just so that he doesn't have to move out of my way. The way you pretend to not notice someone you don't want to talk to at a public place by not making eye contact or looking in that person's direction is how some of these lazy ignorants act at the store. They are too lazy to move out of your way, so they are going to deny the fact that you are there!

Be aware of your surroundings! Don't ever do something that will cause an inconvenience to someone else, minions!