Things that annoy

I'm one of those people that hate to shop. Any kind of shopping (well, except for books on amazon.com, which my Visa rep can verify). When it's absolutely necessary I do it, but I'm in and out as quickly as I can.

Today was a must shop day (boys needed food). I went after work, like everyone else in town. Anyway, I get to the bread aisle. All I want is a loaf of bread and muffins, if they have them.

The bread aisle was a popular aisle. There were at least half a dozen baskets (along with a bazillion people) on the aisle, not to mention a stocker with one of those dollies stocking the shelves.

As I approach the bread there is this lady with two kids (a boy and a girl about 5 and 3, respectively, I would guess) blocking where I wanted to be. I was patient because they were there first. The lady hands a loaf to the boy who starts running and darting through the maze of shopping carts until he reaches a cart just behind me, where I realize his father is. He slam dunks the bread into the cart and weaves his way back to his mother, who is still blocking the bread I want.

The boy says something to his mother and the mother says something back. None of which I hear but after the mother's comment the boy squeals something about needing to take something back to the cart and the mother tells him she doesn't have anything for him to take back to the cart. He darts back through the carts to his father, upset.

The mother finally moves to the other side of the aisle and I move up to the bread products. I snatch up what I need only to be stalled by the dolly in the aisle. On the other side is the mother with her two kids now. This time the daughter starts darting through the carts and people in the aisle. I look over at the father (who's now beside me) and he's staring intently at something in his shopping cart.

At this point, I'm pretty annoyed. Neither parent is saying anything to the kids about staying out of the way, to be careful or anything they should be saying. Instead, they're allowing their kids to do whatever they want in a very congested grocery store aisle.

Two carts were maneuvering themselves around the dolly and barely had clearance to get through without hitting each other...they were moving very slowly to avoid that. Yet, the daughter darted between the two carts just before they collided. And still neither parent said a word. I glared at the father, who was still engrossed in whatever was in their shopping cart. I again looked at the mother, who had just handed the boy something to take back to the cart. The boy was, once again, darting through the maze of shoppers and carts and instead of saying something helpful like "be careful" or "watch out for whatever", she says, "Don't throw it into the cart, it will break." She yelled this over two carts and at least three people. I made eye contact with one of the other shoppers and we exchanged "can you believe this shift" looks with one another.

It was at this time I saw my opening to get around the dolly, out of loaves of bread and into the muffin area. As I was negotiating my way around the dolly, I saw the boy's hand raise high in the air as he went to slam dunk whatever he had in his hand into the shopping cart.

I didn't hear a crash but I didn't look back to see what had happened. What I know didn't happen is nothing was said by the parents.

Don't get me wrong, I love kids. Have always wanted to have kids, even now. But I don't think there is a good reason to 1) flat out not watch your kids in a public place; and 2) expect others to watch out for your kids, again, in a public place.

I'm not a confrontational person or I would have said something to one or both of the parents because I was pretty annoyed. It took me no less than ten minutes to get down the aisle to get two items, due in no small part to two kids weaving in and out of "traffic". I was so annoyed.

Okay, this concludes this rant.