It's a mad, mad world

I met a crazy lady today. A very pissed off crazy lady. Well, she was either a crazy lady, or one of those unfortunate individuals who, after just being released from a lifetime of captivity in a closet, find themselves completely incapable of properly interacting with fellow human beings. But I digress.

I was sitting down infront of the magazine rack at my local Superstore (yes, sitting ... You try browsing through magazines standing up with a bum foot). Anyway, I was flipping through my very secret, guilty-pleasure magazine that I only read alone, and if you ask what magazine it was I will not tell you, as it is a secret. This woman comes by in a crazylike way, and asks in a voice just brimming over with crazyosity, "Is that your basket?" Being a completely sane person, I reply in a distinctly friendly and non-crazy voice that yes it is my basket. And before I have time to blink or sneeze or do anything that doesn't require much time she crazily says, "Well move it out of my way I can't see the magazines", and she kicks my basket, kicks it mind you, out of the way.

It's my personal policy in these matters to ignore the crazy person or persons involved for my own health and safety. I could have said what was on the tip of my tongue, "Excuse me. I'm sorry you probably hear this all the time, but you are the biggest bitch I have ever met", but it wouldn't have taken much to wind this tightly wound woman up, and she seem the type that would be capable of clawing my eyes out. So I said nothing. After all, maybe I just imagined the hostility in her voice. I'm a sensitive person. I tend to do that. But then she said in that "under the breath" voice people use when they want to be heard loud and clear, "Sitting on the ground for fuck sakes. Why doesn't she just by the fucking magazine". (Again, I'm not going to tell you the title of the secret, guilty-pleasure magazine, so you might as well stop asking).

I was having one of those moments that the people on those French gag shows must get just before the camera is revealed. It's not everyday that you have someone in a Superstore lash out with such tabooed public hostility. I mean, I think this kind of stuff everyday, but it takes a certain breed of social retards to say it out loud. Two seconds later she snaps, "You're still in my way. Move or I'll get staff to remove you. That's it," she raved, not bothering to pause to take a breath. "I'm gonna get someone to move you. Fucking idiot. Just buy the magazine." And she stomped away like some stomping thing. Like I said, she was pretty wound. Like a clock you could say. Part of me wanted to stick around, and push her buttons, and smile sweetly at the worker, and say, "I was just browsing like these good people, but a grave ankle injury forces me to sit where others would stand". There isn't a jury in the country that would convict me, but I know from experience a customer service worker will do almost anything to accommodate a hysterical and deranged customer, and I wouldn't want her to think she'd won. I also I was a little afraid that if I sat around winding her up for too long she'd slap me, or die (I'm a nice person; I don't want that on my conscience. She I got up and carried on with my shopping, leaving the secret, guilty-pleasure magazine behind, which I couldn't buy anyway because of its secretness. Maybe I should have explained that to her.