What makes people mean?
A couple of weekends ago I was in the grocery store, Walmart to be exact. Yes I know. I hate it too. I feel horrible shopping there, but I feel worse if I don’t feed my kids…
Anyway, I had done my shopping, gotten in line, was completely checked through, gave the check out girl my $20 in cash, and then reached for my card… and it wasn’t there. Other than feeling the complete panic of losing my card, my mind quickly raced through possibilities. Right before I’d gone to Walmart I had stopped at the atm, where I’d used my card (and gotten the $20) and remembered distinctly taking my card back. I had the $20 bill in my wallet (where my card belongs) and also the receipt, but no card which was VERY strange. Knowing I’d had it when getting into my car but not at the time that the check out girl was looking at me made me realize that it had to be a) in the car or b) somewhere in the store (god that would have been a horror- do you know how BIG walmart stores are?).
Anyway, judging that it had fallen out in the car, I asked if they could just suspend my order and I’d just run and get the card. I’d paid cash, so no, they couldn’t. The girl called the manager. The manager felt for me, obviously. I said that I was sure it was in my car and I was parked very close to the door, could I just take a minute to go run and get it… The manager looked at the woman behind me, and said she’d be glad to help move her stuff over to the next aisle. The woman, who only had enough groceries to fit on the (what do you call those things any way - the things that slide?) - anyway - nothing was left in her cart so it’s not like she had copious amounts of groceries. She refused, and complained that it was too much to move. When I said it would just take a minute she complained again, saying she couldn’t wait that long…
While the manager and check out girl were still trying to figure out what to do, I said I’m going to dash to my car, I’ll be right back. And I did. It took about 1 minute 30 seconds. I came back in, and they had had to cancel my order. The woman behind me was only half way through with her grocery check out, and even going into the next lane where the poor girl had to unbag and then rebag all my groceries, I finished just a couple minutes after that mean old lady.
As I moved my cart into the next lane, I looked at her and smiled and said “Thank you so much for waiting”. When she was gone, and I was standing next to the original girl, she told me that the lady had looked down her nose and asked whether I didn’t have the money to pay. When the check out girl said that no it was just that i’d left my card in my car, she sort of snorted. Then when looking for HER card… she couldn’t find it. At least not immediately. Small satisfaction. But both check out girls smiled.
I figure somewhere along the line she will really need to get somewhere and someone will do the same thing to her. I sent her karma on it’s way back to her. But I also wondered, as I so often do, what could be so terrible in a person’s life to make them so mean and inconsiderate.
Mean people suck.
