"Mortal Combat" is for Sissies....

   Earlier this week, I posted on Facebook that "Mortal Combat" is for Sissies. For real fighting and survival skills one only need go to the grocery store during the week before Thanksgiving. It was brutal. And I had to traverse no less than four grocery stores! Between almost being run down in the parking lot, boxed in by a senior shopping cart blockade in the dairy department and nearly being impaled by a five year old in control of a full sized cart, I barely survived with my life, let alone my groceries. There was no friendly holiday spirit. No kind gestures to start off the holiday season. No room for error in navigating the aisles. One misstep and a body would become a permanent addition to the canned goods aisle.

The streets of Deadwood began to clear....

    By the time I reached the check out, I had a glint in my eye. I could hear my mental rifle being loaded as the bullets slid into their chambers and I snapped the barrel shut. I was ready for whatever came next. Survival shopping isn't pretty.

    Perhaps this is why friends and family are tentative about letting me loose at the grocery store. I don't usually get in trouble shopping. Most of the time. Okay, there was that episode where the police were called... But I didn't do anything, except raise my voice.

    I was protesting. Hey, it was legit.

    It was a looonngg line to check out.

    It was the only line open.

    The manager kept closing the checkout line.

    It was NOT MY FAULT.

   It was how the situation was being handled that brought on the crisis....I had been shopping for a week's worth of groceries at the local grocery store. It was pretty busy in the store, and by the time I arrived at the checkout, the line was long. There was only one register open. Patiently I took my place at the end of the line and fidgeted as I slowly made my way closer to the register. The manager appeared. First he moved people at the back of the line to another register, but not turn on that register light. Assuming that he had opened a second register to alleviate the press of people, myself and several others remained in line in an orderly fashion to be checked out. Then, after a number of people moved and the check out process had started at the second register, he announced that the register we were standing at was closed and could all remaining people in line please move to an open line. Meaning the other register that now had a line since there were no other registers open.

SAY WHAT?

   The first time I was a bit surprised. So were the others left stranded in our check out line. But we moved like sheep on the hill hoping to graze in the next pasture, behind the people who were standing in line at the open register. Just when the check out register was nearly in sight, the manager told the lady in front of me that he had to close our line because it was the end of the shift for that clerk and he could not have her work overtime.

   We all moved again, but this time it resembled an orderly cattle stampede. After what seemed days, I finally made it to the conveyor belt and was about to unload my groceries when the illustrious manager announced that remaining customers in line would have to move to another register.

   There was only one register open. That line now stretched halfway through the store. Might even have gone out the back door. No way I was going to find out.

    I calmly continued to unload my groceries from my cart onto the conveyor belt. I was no longer listening. I think it was because I was standing in a puddle of the ice cream I intended to purchase. Must have been the ice cream.

   In a loud voice (the one a person reserves for talking to a naughty toddler), the manager told me that I would have to move to the other line to check out, the line I was standing in was closed.

   I said NO. I was not changing lines again. I also used a loud voice. Perhaps my best toddler voice.

   Louder still, he repeated that I had to move.

   My next NO was quite a bit louder. I told him that I was not going to move to yet another check out, he would just have to check me out in the line I was standing in and that he was also going to have to go get me fresh ice cream because I was pretty sure the stuff in my cart was liquid and I still had to walk home IF I ever managed to get out of the store.

   Louder still, he turned on a condescending tone and told me I would not be checked out unless I moved to the other line and that I must move. If I didn't he would call the police.

   As you can imagine, that really made an impression on me. Feeling all cowed and intimidated, I believe I told him (at the top of my lungs) to please do so as I would love to talk to the police. After all, it looked like after forty five minutes of shopping and about forty minutes in line I wasn't getting checked out any time soon, I had plenty of time to talk to just about anyone. I think the staff could hear me at the back of the store. From in the freezer. At the end of the other checkout line.

   Mind you, I didn't swear. Not once. Honest injun. Not to my fellow line sufferers. Not at the poor register clerk. Not at the puffy store manager. And certainly not to the police when they arrived. As a matter of fact, the police were very nice when they arrived. I lowered my tone at the officer's polite request. They were quite understanding when I told them my plight. When they asked the cashier to please check me out, there were cheers from my fellow shoppers. One reminded the cashier to call frozen to bring me fresh ice cream. The cashier was grinning from ear to ear.

The manager, however, was purple.

   The police were not so understanding with the purple manager who would not stop yelling. They didn't like it very much when he told them they couldn't tell his staff what to do. They really did not like it when he called me some pretty nasty names. But it wasn't until he decided to swear at them that they got truly angry and took him out to the squad car to cool off.

   I was content to file an informal complaint with the officer. I didn't dislike the manager or the store. I was just frustrated with the situation and how it was handled. They took my complaint at the register as I was being checked out. After I was checked out, I was offered a ride home by the nice officer, but I declined as I felt I could use the walk to cool down. If they followed me home, they were very discreet.

   After returning home and putting my groceries away, I wrote the store headquarters a complaint, detailing the issues I had encountered. I was disappointed with my experience shopping there and was considering my other options. Unfortunately these options were pretty limited where I lived and would involve a bit of driving to get my weekly groceries.

    The chain headquarters sent me a very generous gift card and an apology. They noted that check out policies and staffing issues were being reviewed at my store location. They hoped that I would consider shopping with them again. Placated, I decided to try hauling out my trusty two wheeled shopping basket and walking down to the store once more. I preferred walking to the store over a drive in snarled traffic, though I was a bit hesitant about what I could expect when I arrived at the store.

    After five blocks, I hooked my basket to the front of the store cart and headed in. The store manager, upon my arrival, abandoned the service desk and disappeared into the office. Shopping was peaceful and check out was smooth. I took my groceries home in a timely manner. Then I called my friends and told them they could put away the bail money.

   I could handle this shopping thing. Without getting arrested. Or taken down in a blaze of glory.

   "Call of Duty" is for amatures.