Curses! Mother’s Day!

I hadn’t really forgotten to get my mom a Mother’s Day gift; I just hadn’t gotten around to it yet. And never mind that it was 10am ON Mother’s Day – I wasn’t going to her house until around 4pm anyway.

So I run to the Fred Meyer to pick up some vegetables to grill that evening at my mom’s – since my daughter, K, is a vegequarium* and I guarantee that the non-meat offerings will be minimal and carb-heavy, rather than fruit/vegetable heavy.

As I start to drive past the garden center, I notice all of the lovely fuchsia plants hanging from the eaves. My mom loves those and I get her one every year, so I make a note to self to stop by there after picking up my groceries and pick out a nice fuchsia plant for Mom.

With about $20 worth of grillable vegetables filling two plastic grocery bags, I roam the aisles of the garden center comparing each and every fuchsia plant so that I can give my Mom the best one there. I narrow it down to two: one of the purple and white color scheme and the other is purple and fuchsia. I decide that they call ‘em fuchsias for a reason and opt for the purple and fuchsia combo. I head toward the makeshift cashier area and stand behind a tall older gentleman with a shopping cart, who is being assisted by the cashier. I put the heavy and awkward fuchsia plant down on my left side, but continue to hold my two bags of groceries on my right.

After about five minutes, the older gentleman in front of me begins to steer his cart away back into the garden center and I realize that I should be standing on the other side of the makeshift cashier stand in order for the cashier to ring me up. I pick up my fuchsia plant and begin to walk toward the counter. But before I can do so, a man of 60 or so hanging onto his last smidgeon of hairline and what appears to be his teen daughter step in front of me with their purchase. When I notice that the cashier is helping them first, I decide to speak up for myself.

“Um, excuse me, am I invisible?”

“No, you’re a pushy bitch.” Receding Hairline clearly has an issue with women standing up for themselves.

“I was waiting in line long before you got here,” I asserted.

“No, you were standing over there,” he gestures to where I was originally standing, “and the line is supposed to be here,” he moves his pointing finger to indicate the spot about a foot and a half from where I was actually standing. Then he adds, “deal with it.”

Now, I have been on both sides of this equation and my experience has pretty much always been that when someone accidentally takes cuts and it’s pointed out to them, they apologize and gracefully allow the person who’d been waiting to go ahead. This has happened to me when I’ve spoken up before and it’s happened when I was oblivious to someone waiting before me. I was really astonished that this guy was not only determined to be helped first, but was calling me names and chewing me out. I just had to speak up.

“I feel really sorry for your wife.” Oh-oh, did I just say that out loud? I must’ve because all of a sudden, Receding Hairline was in my face.

“You know what you are?” clearly this was a rhetorical question, “You are a fucking cunt!”

Holy shit. The wife pity comment must’ve really hit home. I can’t believe he just called me that. I didn’t want this clown to escalate any further and, clearly, it doesn’t take much.

“Get away from me with your filthy mouth.”

He continued with his colorful expletives. Man, I must’ve hit the jackpot – the wife must really hate him and he knows it.

“Can’t you see there are children around here?” Still, the guy wouldn’t stop. I raised my voice at least one decibel.

“Shut up and get away from me. NOW.”

I don’t know if I caught him off-guard with my raised voice or if he just ran out of expletives to sling at me, but he finally turned around and stomped off. His teen daughter was already in the parking lot waiting for him. Was she embarrassed? Or does she think that this is how one resolves a conflict? The sad thing is that I really did feel sorry for this guy’s wife! Imagine being married to someone who can’t admit to being wrong, considers women who stand up for themselves to be pushy bitches, and is rather quick to spew a string of expletives at anyone who calls him on his rudeness…

I was a little bit addled after this. Not how I imagined my Mother’s Day to begin. Perhaps next year I’ll get my mother something different for Mother’s Day.





*Vegequarium = One who is pretty much a vegetarian, but also eats fish. K was in preschool when she decided to become a vegetarian because her best pal, Fritz, was a vegetarian and she didn’t want to hurt animals. Shortly after this decision was made, we asked her what she wanted for dinner one night and she said, “sushi”! I asked her if she’d decided not to be a vegetarian after all and she looked at me quizzically. I reminded her that sushi is fish, which could be considered an animal. She thought about this for a minute and then said, “since I love sushi, I guess I’ll be a vegequarium then.”