Militant Patriotism

I was happily browsing through a quilting magazine in the grocery store checkout line. I decided to buy the magazine, first one in over a year, and proceeded to herd children through the aisle, so I could pay. This was just a quick trip to the store because I'm a bad mother and a) forgot to send in treats for the summer birthday celebration at school today, and b) didn't feel like making anything from scratch like all the other good supermoms with children at that school. So I suck again, proving it with the purchase of seven tubes of cookie dough.

I don't know if I've said this before, but I seem to attract people that like to talk. In particular, I attract crazy people that like to talk. John tells me I'm too nice, that I listen and respond and pay attention and basically ask for it. But I want to know what makes them pick me in the first place. I'm probably marked by the devil, and these people can see it in their delusional states. It's a demon curse, I tell you.

It doesn't help that this store seems to be very conscious of employing the special needs folk, which is all well and good, but it's like a big setup for me. These employees seem to be most skilled at bagging groceries too, so it's not like I can skip the cereal aisle in order to avoid a conversation. Nope, I always manage to get the most crazed and talkative bagger in the entire store and the most unhelpful, apathetic checker too. I've been shown a million dollar bill and told all the things he would do if it were real. I've been admired for my hair and given a list of all the people that person ever knew or even saw that had red hair. I've had my groceries analyzed and asked about them. The checker just snickers under his or her breath and looks at me like a zoo beast.

Today, I got the molasses bagger. I've seen chess games go faster than this man. He may have bagged quicker had he not been talking so much, but I doubt it. I was so happy I only had eleven things, seven of which were cookie dough, but he managed to split those eleven items into three bags and had to load them into a cart.

Before all that though, I got to hear about why he took his time. You see, he has to take his time and do things right because we need to keep jobs here in America. He said all the jobs are going to China and Mexico because we don't do a good enough job and slop through things. Has he seen the shit put out by these countries? I don't think quality of work is exactly the issue here, but I just smiled and didn't say a word. That's what John told me to do, but I probably shouldn't have smiled. I don't know that anything would have mattered. The man had a captive audience. He proceeded to rant about the poor performance put out by Americans nowadays and finally finished off with a prediction we will be in a depression by the end of the month. So start stocking up now, gang. I wanted out of there so fast, I didn't even bother to grab the bags out of the cart, but took the cart and all and bolted toward the door with kids in tow. I thought the guy would bag the next set of groceries, but he followed me toward the door, muttering. At first I thought I forgot something and turned around. I shouldn't have. Even if I had forgotten something, it would have been worth the loss to get the hell out of there.

I feel kind of sorry for the guy, but he scared me too. He just had a wild way about him and didn't make a damn bit of sense to boot. He was old enough to be well set in his loony ways, so there really isn't anything to do about someone like that but stay out of the way, if at all possible. Unfortunately for me, it's less possible than for most. I'm a freak magnet, plain and simple.