So I stopped at the 24 hour Kmart/Coles megaplex on my way home from work about 2am this morning. And there was some problem with their registers, making everything run slow so it was taking like literally almost a minute to process each item. Yeah that doesn't sound like much but think about it for a second. Scan item. Count to sixty in yr head. Scan next item. Couple this with people's need to buy forty boxes of discount catfood and a packet of skittles at 2 fucking am on a sunday fucking morning and you begin to understand why a somewhat substantial backed up queue had developed, stretching all the way back past the registers and curling up into the health food aisle. And my frustration is probably better related in first person:
"It's 2am, I've been at work and had a shitty night, I just want to pay for this fucking soyghurt and go the fuck home to bed. But now I've gotta queue up. Okay, no one's fault really. Maybe people could be a little bit more organised and have their shit sorted to pay while they're waiting the ten minutes to scan their groceries instead of suddenly deciding they forgot the baking sugar. Maybe the jerk with the two full trolleys could let the guy with the single two pack of soyghurt through ahead of him, but whatever. Nothing you can do, no one's fault.
***
"Okay it's now 2:20am and there's still three people ahead of me. I'm starting to get annoyed despite myself. And why's that fucking security guard staring at me? Jesus christ the songs on the radio are fucking annoying in here.
***
"Oh hey it's 2:30 and I'm paying for my yoghurt. Sweet. Shit, is that Jack Johnson on the radio? Or one of those other criminally bland 'surf' music guys. Surf? Gimme a break. Dick Dale would call all you guys pussies and piss on yr feet, then give you a look all like 'yeah, what are you pussies gonna do about it?'. Anyway..."
So as I'm about to pay I realise the thing that's been annoying me most about the muzak (it was Ben Harper by the way), is the dude behind me in the queue singing along at a volume really not appropriate full of the stoned, chronically unemployed and sociopathic loner types at that hour of a monday morning. I turned around and said (smiling, mind you, with a total 'aw shucks we've been here for ages aint that a funny thing cor blimey you gotta laugh don't you guv'nor' kinda way) 'aw man, if you keep that up you're going to be first when I come back in here and shoot the place up in a minute...'.
Cue to, five seconds later, me being frogmarched out of coles by the security guard and given a lecture about 'making threats'.
Okay okay, look, I realise that this is like leaving unattended baggage in an airport but HE WAS SINGING ALONG IN PUBLIC IN AN ANNOYING VOICE. Plus I was joking. The cashier laughed goddamnit.
Nah I'm not annoyed, I realised that facon jerk had to do his duty, because it's hard life and all working the crucial midnight to 9am sunday shift in Burwood, I mean we're talking like mean streets of downtown Fallujah type shit...but it was kinda hard to keep a straight face as he lectured me about 'threatening violence to people'.
Nah I'm not annoyed, I realised that facon jerk had to do his duty, because it's hard life and all working the crucial midnight to 9am sunday shift in Burwood, I mean we're talking like mean streets of downtown Fallujah type shit...but it was kinda hard to keep a straight face as he lectured me about 'threatening violence to people'.
