Stupidity and Bagging Groceries

June 20, 2009 by Keli.

Husband (H) takes extreme care in selecting apricots to buy from the store. He examines each individual fruit, sniffing the neighboring air for the right scent and gently prodding to make sure they’re on the very cusp of ripeness, without blemish or visible scar. Only then are they edible. He’s trained our sons to appreciate the barely ripe as well. Anything more or less is eaten by me, the most easygoing family member.

As I stood with H to buy the apricots and a few other items, we chatted, paying little attention to the cashier and bagger.

Once home, H raised his arms to the ceiling and wailed in anger as he unpacked the groceries. His beloved apricots had been shoved down…way down below weighty cans of tomato sauce, oversize peanut butter jars, then crowned by a gallon of milk. They were squished beyond recognition. As you may imagine, we’d been bagged by a stuper (short yet again, for an unpredictably stupid person).

H stormed away, ready to march back to the market, but I stopped him, offering to go in his place. I promised to channel him when choosing the next batch of apricots and to properly oversee the bagging. After all, I am the stupidity specialist, and I was craving a slice of Coconut Cream Cake from the store bakery.

I picked out a few items, including the apricots, and got in line. A youngish bagger showed up to help. As I watched him toss the apricots in the bottom of the bag, I quickly offered,

“I’ll do that.”

He shrugged unhelpfully and took off. I took over. As I did my own righteous bagging job, another bagger, Mindy, appeared, and asked if I wanted help.

“No, thank you,” I said, and patiently explained the process, step by step, to Mindy, as if I were an aged, wise, philosophical bagging master, well versed in the meticulous placement of all food items, hoping beyond hope, that my model bagging would open a whole new world for moronic store workers so they’d never again return to the sloppy, haphazard, eggs-belong-at-the-very-bottom type of slouch bagging job.

Sure enough, the next time H and I shopped in the store, Mindy, the willing absorber of my bagging wisdom, picked up our items to place in our bag. H was about to snarl tell her quite firmly about the correct placement of delicate fruit, when I lay my hand gently on his muscular forearm. I subtly shook my head. H frowned fiercely, but kept quiet.

Mindy bagged with great care. A surprised H approved.

We can either get frustrated and angry when dealing with stupidity, which only undermines our personal satisfaction and wastes our time when we could be doing something more constructive like eating a delicious slice of coconut cream cake, or we can attempt to set an example that may possibly be transmitted to the unoccupied idiot mind and mimicked a la monkey see monkey do. A remote chance of converting a stuper is better than no chance at all. 

I can only point the way, Grasshopper. You must walk the path yourself ~ Master Po  

Don’t stop thinking.

Keli

Keli@counterfeithumans.com

Posted in Plain Old Fashioned Stupidity | 5 Comments »