Feline Warrior

Listen up, people! Stop sharing intimate details of your life with people waiting in line with you! More specifically, stop sharing those intimate details with ME!

From now on, I am going to thrust my fingers into my ears and loudly sing, “La-la-la-la-laaaaaaaaaa!” It’s just not fair that I should suffer in this way, and my uncomfortable shifting, averted eyes, and heavy sighs are wasted on these public shares of personal stuff.

Picture it: Summer of 2005. I’m standing in the longest line in the history of long lines, with not even that much stuff in my cart (or “buggy” as they call it here), waiting for either my natural death or the damn line to move, when the woman behind me starts in on the group share.

If it was something innocuous, like, say, what a great buy those Gala apples are, who’d care? But the woman behind me is desparate for human contact, and she goes to the supermarket to find it. She starts off innocently enough, to lure me in, commenting on the hellish weather, and sure enough, I bite. It’s the weather, for cryin’ out loud, we’re in the longest line in the history of long lines, so why wouldn’t I?

But she can’t leave it at that level. Oh, no. Next thing I know, I’m hearing about the heat rash she gets directly under her (very large) bosom when the weather’s like this. She’s moving on to tell of the chafing that occurs between her (very large) thighs, when I grab a thought from mid-air, and interrupt, “What about them Redskins, huh?!” (This tactic works best when in the Washington, DC area - it’s rather lost further south.) Despite my interruption, Lonely Lady continues, now with a look of concern as she tells of prickly rashes or some such insanity. (She’s concerned about possible heat damage to my brain, but doesn’t consider that perhaps not talking at all would be the best way to deal with the situation.)

This is but an example - I could quote zillions more. The woman who told me about her husband’s cousin who is in prison for rape, and the actions of the prison avengers; the man who told me about his wife leaving, taking the children, leaving no phone number, but taking his entire beer supply; the woman who wanted to share the details of her hussy stepdaughter’s unfortunate herpes infection… oh, the list goes on.

I’m fully aware (now) of the lack of boundaries here. It might be a southern thing, and/or perhaps it’s because I am in the Bible Belt (giving way to a need to confess…?) and yet I find that my patience for this behavior has not just worn thin, it no longer exists. There are the people who practically sit on my shoulders as I do the self-checkout (the lane where you can ring up your own stuff, presumably for people who (a) know how to scan barcodes and (b) don’t have 147 items in their “buggies”), or the families who have reunions in the middle of the feminine products aisle. (”Uh, ’scuse me, I just need to get to that box of tampons… no, sir, thanks, that’s not my brand… that’s great, yeah, your wife likes the lilac scented ones, but those chemicals… nevermind… if I could just…”)

STOP THE MADNESS, I say! Stop telling me your personal stuff! If you don’t, I will charge you group therapy fees, and I am not cheap! (even though I’m not a licensed therapist, what the hell, my time is valuable!) Plus, really, I do not want to know! Keep the damned prickly heat report to your own damn self!

Image from here