Rant(s) Du Jour

Don't get old. I know, everything changes, and we need to bend before we break, but there are a few things I think are common courtesies that no matter who you are or how young you are or or how different "things" are today, you just do them because it's right.

Rant #1: I go past a small Whole Foods market on the road I take from work to get to the highway. When it first opened I thought it was very cool to have one so convenient for me. WRONG! Since it is small, and it is inside the Beltway, and anyone who lives in the DC area knows that "inside the beltway" has it's own driving rules (like "I live here, therefore I have the right-of-way"), this conveniently-located store became a thorn in my side. Let's go back many years, when I picked the wrong day to drop in to pick up "a few things". It was one of those days when the shopping center had hired a group of full-of-themselves boy-scout-esque 20-somethings to direct traffic. Yes, I said "direct traffic" in a parking lot. See what I am dealing with? Well, this guy directed me to a parking spot right next to a car where the driver had gotten out, opened his back door, and was getting his child out of a car seat. Being a reasonable person, I waited. But nooooooo, the guy with the flag started yelling at me to move already! Uh, excuse me? I really did not want to hit the guy and his kid ... to which he yelled that I was holding up traffic. So I calmly drove straight out of the parking lot and never went back. Never. I did write a letter to the store when I got home, but I am sure since someone behind me took that parking spot and shopped in their store, they really did not care.

By the way, this store is still a thorn in my side since the same people seem to shop there, they still have people directing traffic in the parking lot, and they still back up traffic onto the main road because they are incapable of driving like normal people. JMHO.

Rant #2: Same shopping center, same parking lot, blessedly no one directing traffic. I needed to stop at Whole Foods on my way home last night, so since traffic was not backed up from the store's parking lot into the main road, I decided to ... give it a try. I pulled right into the main aisle in which they have cleverly posted signs with arrows to tell you that you may not turn into any side aisle from the main one...you must drive to the end and come at the side aisles from the other side. I guess this is supposed to keep traffic flowing. So I pulled up behind the only other car in the half-empty (for a change) parking lot, and this woman just stopped. Stopped dead. Then she put her car into reverse and started to back up! BACK UP! Wah?! Turns out there was someone in a parking space who had not even begun to back up yet, so she should have driven on past and just parked in the next row. But noooooo, she needed THAT spot, so she backed up to let him out. Unfortunately I was behind her, and when she waved frantically at me like "move already!" (do we see a pattern here?) I backed up, she backed up, the car in the parking spot backed up and left, she pulled right in, and I drove past the 18 other empty parking spots and left the lot, never, never, never, NEVER to return. NEVER!!! Oh, by the way...on my way out of the lot, someone turned left past the No Left Turn sign and parked. See - they live there, so that sign does not apply to them. Never going back. Never.

Rant #3: Tonight I made my usual Post Office stop to have a bubble envelope of stuff weighed to get the postage. It is a quick in-and-out task. I am (surprise!) one of those people who thinks other people's time is as important as mine, so I try not to waste it - theirs or mine. Silly me. I had no idea that you could bring a shopping bag to the Post Office, and take that opportunity to try out all the bubble envelopes and boxes offered for sale to see which one fit your item(s) best. Then you can get out of line, start to pack up your items, then get back in line later, but since you got there so long ago, you can just cut in front of whoever is closest to the head of the line, then you can spend 10-15 minutes discussing shipping options with the clerk, go back and forth to the shopping container area, then you can start to tape up your box, then begin to look for the address you need to put on the shipping label... Why is this okay? I take great pains to have my items packaged before I get in line. What is wrong with people that they think this behavior is okay!?

So, am I too old to go out in public any more? Should I move to an island somewhere? Or maybe a farm in the middle of nowhere? Please, tell me what you think! I really want to know...really!

Oh, and I simply LOVE Whole Foods, but I shop at the very large store near where I live; the one with the very large parking lot with mostly very courteous drivers.

I think I need to go stamp something.