Insanity At The Deli Counter Line

Sunday -
I walk to the supermarket Deli counter.
I pull my ticket #97 and walk to the nearby bathroom.
I had two people ahead of me in line at The deli.
Come out of the bathroom and wait a minute --
#97 comes up on the counter.
At that moment a woman in front of me says to
the deli clerk "Hey, I've been waiting ten minutes here -
I forgot to get a ticket."
She begins to order -
I interupt.
"Excuse me, I am number 97 - I am next - half lb. of ham,please."
The woman turns to me and says
"I saw you come up...I was here before you."
I said, "No, you were not here."
She says loudly -
"I am a pancreatic cancer survivor ! This is how you treat people ?"
She moves behind me.( she knew she was wrong )
I reply :
"Yeh..well...I just buried my best friend,yesterday."
She says behind me.
"Yeh - you probably killed him !"
I said calmly -
"Ma'am, I have no time for your anger."
*
I got my ham + left.
*
*
Do you think she was a cancer survivor ?
Why would you bring that up ?
>
And yes - I had just buried my long time friend -
knew him since 2nd grade.
I had no time for trivial BS at a deli line, for godsake !
.
What a day ?

 

who knows if she was or wasn't, but she obviously was in a hurry. why not just let her go ahead of you? good karma for you and then you don't risk getting into an upsetting altercation.

 

There's principalities involved in this, Smokey.

 

Even if I was there before her, I would have let her go ahead of me if she thought she was there before me. Did she over-react and become surly? Yes! Is she probably a jerk? yep! However, just because I was there first does not mean I have to assert my right to be next. Sorry, I am southerner and I was raised that way. Probably doesnt make a lot of sense in other parts of the country. Sometimes a little kindness paid forward will keep folks from becoming surly jerks. I also let people merge into traffic on the freeway, hold doors open for people I dont know, and say "please, thank you, Yes Mam and Yes sir". And I waive to people in my neighborhood that I dont know from Adam...everybody in my neighborhood waives to each other.

 

Distorted thinking

People do distorted thinking and talking when they think they are right and you are wrong. But at the same time.....you....also are at a lose for the right think
to say to the lady. You were right because you had the number. She was wrong
because she didn't have the number.

The lady thought that you were not first because she had just seen you walk up
to the deli counter. But when she saw that you had the number that showed that
you were next..... she decided to talk about her medical problems so you would
feel sorry for her. I do believe she had a serious medical problem. She thinks
being a survivor of a medical problem is something that gives her the right to be
served instead of you that had the number that was called.

You were next and you did the right thing because that is why the numbers are there for people not to get in front of you. When there are no numbers there is no way to prove that you were there first.

It was your option to let her go first but at that moment you didn't feel like letting her go first and it was okay. LucyR.

 

im a southerner too,born and raised near memphis my whole life but i think people here are so rude compared to other places i travel. i also lived in seattle for one year taking classes and those were the nicest people plus fun too!

 

Sorry to hear about your experience in Memphis and you are right about it. Unfortunately, I have to travel to Memphis a couple times per month and it is my least favorite city in the entire country, so i get what you are saying. I call it the Detroit of the south. My experience has been that I find nice, polite, and well mannered people everywhere I go. However, the manner in which folks typically interact with each other is definitely affected by their locale. I am not meaning to be provincial but people from other parts of the country come here and notice the difference immediately. And they never want to leave...

 

Umm, could you define "people here"? Do you mean VMB, or a certain part of the country?

 

hehe i like detroit of the south i'm in lakeland,about 30 minutes out of memphis but i used to work there.

no no no sorry i meant people here in the south especialy around me compared to other places i go. the vmb community is always warm and nice

 

Being polite does not mean letting people walk all over you.

 

I hate some of these people (I don't mean cancer survivors, I mean some of these people who think they deserve to go ahead of everyone else and skip the line). I would do the same thing as joe. The problem is if you allow these people to cut in line and get their way they will continue to feel entitled to do that and will pull that crap all the time expecting everybody to let her get away with it. the other problem is that they use any excuse to gain sympathy, cancer survivor, in a hurry etc. yes, if the lady was elderly (or young and cute) I would consider letting her go ahead of me but if she acts like a b-- expecting me to back down I would moreso not let her go ahead of me. one thing for someone to be nice and ask nicely that they are in a hurry and if they could go ahead of me (yes a few ladies get away with that), another thing to act like a demanding b-- expecting others to let her jump the line.

If I was in Joe's shoes I would ask what her number was and if it was higher than 97 I would just say that my number comes before hers so she should wait in line like the rest of us. I would probably ignore her after that or if she pulled the "this is how you treat people" crap I would mention that this is how I treat prissy b-- who expect everyone else to bow down to them.

I know a certain bounty hunter wife that pulls that same things. "do you know who I am?" etc. expecting to jump the line because she feels she is a celebrity and so entitled to cut lines. I was in line waiting and she pulled that once, I replied "yes, you are trailer trash so you should wait in line like the rest of us". she bitched and moaned but the rest of us got a good laugh out of it. There are a number of celebrities living in hawaii and if they are nice people I would gladly let them go ahead of me. Jim Nabors, daniel dae kim, all nice people I met who didn't ask to go ahead of me but I let them go because they don't expect others to cater to them and are appreciative when it does happen.


Unlike the other posters here I would be less inclined to let whiners like the one Joe met ever go ahead of me.

 

Bingo.
Often we do more harm than good trying to placate folks that are in the wrong. If these people are never told no, they will continually walk all over others.
Love and tolerance can still be practiced without, as 'thecarve' so aptly put, letting people walk all over you.

 

So you met my Mother In Law? Sounds like her to a T... right down to the pancreatic cancer survivor!!!

She once sat down at a bank of slot machines, next to a guy who was smoking and promptly informed him that if he wanted to continue to smoke, he needed to move!!! The guy left!!!

 

This is a great point. Nice people are everywhere and jerks are everywhere. Big cities like New York have a reputation for rudeness but that's not the case at all, and anyone who spends time here can see that. The difference is people tend to be more rushed and also you deal with A LOT more people. For instance you can't wave to random strangers you see otherwise you'd be waving nonstop every time you stepped outside. So tourists might take the lack of eye contact and such as a sign of rudeness, when the truth is you're just used to seeing a gazillion people everywhere so you're conditioned to whatever is practical for your locale. And when there are millions of people in a small area you'll always have a decent number of bad apples who perpetuate stereotypes.

As far as the OP's situation I would've let the lady cut, big deal. I do that all the time if the person is at least halfway polite....though its hard to tell in the OP's case if she came at him with a bunch of attitude right off the cuff. I remember someone posted a similar story about someone asking to cut at a Vegas buffet line once and the opinions on it were similarly polarized.

 

:confused2::confused2:

i thought hawaiians were supposed to be the friendliest people

 

I guess because she survived cancer she is in a hurry since she knows how short life is...

I think its hilarious that she thinks she is entitled to anything since she survived cancer...its like comparing herself to a military vet who served...


But after her "I have been waiting 10 minutes" comment I would have said "well you're gonna wait even longer cause I'm next"
and then after her cancer survivor comment I would have made a comment about how its a shame that modern medicine is ruining Darwin's theory of natural selection and over populating the country...

 

Well put! And true!

 

I agree with thecarve 100%

being polite is not being walked on and it sounds to me like the only thing she was a survivor of was her own stupidity and sense of entitlement

people that go through traumatic events are often the last ones that go around demanding things because they understand that things like that can happen to anyone just like it did to them and you have no idea what anyone has gone through or is going through just like most people have know idea they have just gone through something traumatic

I would imagine if you followed her throughout the day it would be a never ending series of her trying to cut in lines, welch on things and mooch other things

she will be parking in the handicapped spot, running to get ahead of the crippled person to get the shopping scooter in the store and forgetting to take a number or trying to walk up to a clearly closed register like everyone else is waiting in line at the open register because they are too stupid to see there is another register (that is closed of course)......and probably topped off with the walk up to the counter with a long line to "just pay for gas real quick" which of course turns into getting a plug of chaw and some smokes and a lotto ticket as well (tell me which ones of these games people have been winning on)

 

I totally agree. If someone is polite and nice I'm more than willing to let them cut me in line for whatever reason. Once they start acting like a dick and demanding things I'll tell them to go fuck off.

 

There are a very short list of "celebrity" reality show stars I can't believe haven't had their asses kicked yet. Beth Chapman, The Karskankians, and the Detroit Hardcore Pawn brother and sister team.

I like Dog, Leland, Les Gold but the other ones on those shows are horrible