Shopping....

I really like xmas. I like shopping for gifts. I like tacky decorations. I like knowing that a good portion of the world's population is doing the exact same thing, listening to the exact same music, and feeling the exact same nostalgia as I am. I like that so many people can keep an idea like Santa Claus afloat for so many years without forming a religion around him. Unless you consider consumerism a religion, I guess. But heck, sometimes I like consumerism, too.Sometimes I don't like people, though. I was at Target on Christmas Eve buying a few last minute items. As I stood in the express check-out line, the elderly man behind me tapped my shoulder.

Elderly Man: Excuse me, young lady.
Me: Yes?
Elderly Man: You went in front of me.
Me: Excuse me?
Elderly Man: You went in front of me to get in line.
Me: I did?
Elderly Man: Yes, back there.

He was pointing toward the housewares department. Granted, it was right across from the checkout section and a direct shot to the lane I was standing in, but he was making it sound like I was just cutting in line when in fact I had passed him in an unrelated shopping aisle a good twenty feet back. Was I really supposed to know that the slow old man I was briskly passing was headed to the same checkout counter as I was? Should I take to remaining behind elderly people at all times while shopping, just in case they are headed to the same destination as I am, lest be accused of budding? And since that was a rhetorical question, what exactly is the etiquette for appeasing a crazy old man?Being the xmas season (and seeing as how the cashier was giving me a dirty look by this point), I apologized and let him ahead of me in line. But afterwards I felt taken advantage of. It's not like he was crippled or pregnant. Do I really have to give up my place in line for some lazy coot just because he happens to be elderly? Eff that. He was lucky I was in the xmas spirit. And he better think twice before trying that shit again with me in a non-xmas environment.