I Don't Do Well In Crowds...Not At All!

During my entire 66 years on this lovely planet Earth, I cannot think of one instance in which I have ever enjoyed being in large crowds during the holiday shopping season.  It's about as enjoyable as watching a pile of dirt.  By the time my young bride and I get home, I'm fightin' mad and ready to open up an industrial size barrel of whoop ass; thus, the reason why she normally leaves me at home if at all possible because I don't play well with others.

My jaws begin to tighten as we turn into the parking lot and all I see is an ocean of cars, pick-ups and people in various stages of insanity with grocery carts roaming about the asphalt lot like a stampede of African Wilder Beasts.  This is NOT a good sign of things to come...nope, not good at all.   With it being just a couple of days away from Christmas, everyone is in a hurry and have procrastinated to the point to where they're now in a do-or-die situation and all common sense and politeness is tossed to the wind.  Every lane in the parking lot resembles a stacked up JFK airport with people driving around trying to find an open space and then all of a sudden, the whole damned line comes to a complete halt.  Oh for God's sake!  What now?  Three cars ahead of you has come to a complete stop and is now waiting on the people who are loading their groceries into their car to finish, so they can have their spot.  Oh, and of course, the person who is loading all these groceries just so happens to have four children under the age of 8 with her and they're bouncing all over the cart like monkey's on a yo-yo!!  So, where is the father during all of this?  Well, he certainly is not with his wife and kid's that's for damned sure.  Bastard!

Once I got the car finally parked, my young bride and I start bobbing and weaving our way towards the entrance to the store, dodging runaway carts and people driving with handicapped plates.  Geezus, it's like dancing through a mine field wearing a blind fold!  As we entered the store with a list of just a few last minute things to get, every aisle was jammed pack with people of all sizes, ages, mental disorders and personal hygiene.  Well, butter my butt and call me biscuit!  There's more crazy twits and dysfunctional people in this grocery store than the entire movie One Flew Over A Cuckoo's Nest for cryin' out loud.  It's a damned good thing I took my Charles Manson pill this morning or else it would be a bad day at Black Rock and I'd be strangling the crap out of a bunch of ignorant people.  God they're gratin' my nerves!

Some how, some way we managed to get those few things on our list up to the check-out counter without me shoving my entire fist up someone's ass and make them look like a sock puppet.  All 22 check-out lines are packed to the maximum, lines snaking back into the aisles and those that have the sign of '15 items or less' above them, well, they're meaningless today.  Each cashier has no less than a dozen or more people each waiting their turn to be checked out and stroll to the parking lot.  I would rather polish and buff a bob cat's ass with barbed wire than stand in this line.  It's sssooo boring!

Have you ever noticed that when people are literally jammed together in a public place, they're not real comfortable in making eye contact?  It's as though they've withdrawn themselves into a mystical world while waiting and that's when they're the most vulnerable.  Lucky me?  It's during this "Twilight Zone" effect, I've seen people pick their nose, stare off into space, have a one-way conversation with themselves and men playing pocket pool by sticking their hands into the front pocket of their pants to scratch their scrotum or whatever else feels good.  I'm always tempted to say, "Hey, Scooby!  You do away games and tournaments?" And if a woman is wearing a thong that's riding her a little high, you can take it to the bank they'll go digging for that bad boy like it was made of gold.  You betcha'!!

Did I mention the clientele that frequent my local neighborhood grocery store aren't, shall I say, very sophisticated when it comes to what not to wear out in public?  They're not as bad as the Walmartians we've all seen (sleeveless Lynyrd Skynrd t-shirts, plaid Bermuda shorts pulled up to the middle of the chest and knee length black socks worn with ragged sandals), but they're close to it.  They're certainly a constant source of humor for me.