Editor’s Note:  I would like to give mention to Billy and Martin who collaborated with me on these conceptional thoughts.

Taking a route on the road that turns out to be a huge mistake towards your destination

So you are driving to a movie theater two towns away from home.  If you live anywhere except a highly rural area, there are multiple routes one can take to get there.  Being this is not during rush hour, you just aimlessly get in the car, have that shmucky look on your face that foreshadows vulnerability around the corner, and you drive away.

This 10-12 (title of this blog…just a plug!) minute ride should be a delight, and you can almost smell the the butter melting on the popcorn in a few minutes.  Ah…..life is good.

SCREEEEEEECCCHHHHHHHHHH!  A dead stop.  There happens to be a series of huge soccer games at the local high school.  There are more SUV’s and minivans stuck in one place than would exceed any car dealership’s parking lot. There is only two lanes and of course the critical left turn going into the one already small lot is at a halt.  No traffic cops.  Just the ultra conservative soccer mom afraid to use, get ready for this…..THE GAS PEDAL to make the left! Heaven forbid she tries like a normal person.  Nope.  Not her.  She needs at least 100 feet from the oncoming cars in the other lane before she can make her left turn.

At this point, a “sudden genius” in your car has the gaul to question why you took this route?  Even though this is the route you take 98% of the time, you obviously have poor judgement.  The kids are now piling on in the car saying that you are a fool, and that you ruined their night.  We might as well turn around.

What makes this incident more excruciating is that this bottleneck was not a part of your final destination.  At least if you were going to the soccer game, everyone is in a united misery, and the route had no other options.

You, the shmuck, had numerous options but left the house with your brain cells on “low power.”

The fan standing in front of you for the entire sports game at the ballpark

I like to think of myself as being self aware of my surroundings.  Life is not all about me.  I realize, like most normal people, that there are parts of our lives we are expected to share with each other.  In this instance, IT’S THE GOD DAMN VIEW OF THE FIELD!

Why do I have the worst luck going to a Mets baseball game? I just went to a huge Mets/Cubs National league Pennant game at Citi Field and had great seats as a gift from a good friend.  I certainly could not afford those seats.  There was two ‘brilliant fathers’ with their sons that thought it would be a good idea to bring a foam core sign attached to a plastic plumbing tube to try to get on TV.  Their complete vanity took over their cooperative decency. These miserable boys being egged on by their oblivious and selfish dads encouraged them to raise the sign not only between innings, but DURING innings!  They created an obstruction to my line-of-sight view of the batter.  No problem.  I can see the second base just fine!

Not only was this aggravating as possible, but the boys fathers had that silly stupid smile of ‘I am completely unaware of my surroundings’ attitude.  I find this remarkable.  How can someone be so unaware?  Is their world the only world that matters? And why did I have the imagery of them in a Roman Colosseum…Center Stage?

Then, if this was not cruel an unusual torture enough inflicted by this worthless self-centered family, I am subjected to another fool 5 rows down from me.  This 30 something male ‘Mets fan,’ who had a blue furry coat with white flower baskets as a design, decided that he would get up and yell at the umpires and the opposing team for any displeasure he had.  After he got up and yelled, (as if anyone on the field was listening to this miscreant), he would continue to stand up until the next play started, blocking at least 50 decent Mets fans from the field of play.  I was waiting to see which Mets fan would simply have enough of his antics.  You would think it would be the people sitting directly behind him.  Nope.  They were too decent to tell him he was rude.  It took a classic, no-nonsense, blue collar, die hard that probably took out a second mortgage on his house to get these tickets to tell this fool to sit the f$*k down.  He bellowed out his demand from the bottom of his beer belly gut in a thick New York accent, “Hey flowa basket guy (for maximum degradation), ya blockin the damn game.  Sit your shit#*^ty ass down and shut up!”  He got a communal round of applause from the crowd and that was the end of him.

This can’t be happening to me!

Starting the payment process at the supermarket cashier after the checkout

You are fourth in line.  You have eleven items in your carrying basket but the express lanes are closed.  BTW, have you noticed that there also seems to be a shortage of cashiers lately? Anyway, you try to be as patient as can be and hope that the cashier and the shopper is in rhythm. This means they work together on the entire check out process, both bagging during scanning so there is not another delay at the end.

Even it that goes as planned, there is one thing left that drives me out of my mind.  The cashier says to the shopper that the total is $279.32.  As if this is some surprise that the shopper didn’t expect…it’s called ‘the bill’ for the goods they just purchased, it is only at that point in time for the shopper to start the payment process. This is particularly disturbing with women, and worse if they are older.

Alas, she first decides to open her very deep pocketbook with enough crap in there to win a prize from Monty Hall in the game show “Let’s Make A Deal.”  The digging continues……and continues……until finally that elusive purse has been found. Heaven forbid she uses her credit card.  Nah.  That would be too easy.  Perhaps we should set of a desk and a calculator for her to handle this unexpected and complicated transaction?

She decides to pay in cash.  Not only that, she decides to pay in EXACT CASH!  Why is this happening to me? In the Russian Roulette wheel of picking the right cashier line, why do I always seem to pick the worst one?  She then slowly takes out one twenty dollar bill at a time.  The entire line is watching her at this point while talking under their collective breaths.  She finally gets to finishing the ‘take out of 13 twenties’  task to get to $260.00. Now comes the uncanny final $19.32 cents.

She rummages through the purse, where the ‘smaller bills’ are located and whips out a ten, then a five, and of course 4 dollar bills.  As my skin is developing an allergic rash from being around this spectacle, it’s time for her to go to the teeny weeny zippered pouch to dig for .32 cents.

This transaction, that could have been anticipated before the checkout, or by using a credit card, or finally giving 6 fifty dollar bills in hand ready to go, all would have been greatly appreciated by the others on the line that obviously had no place they would rather be.

That’s all that is bothering me today as I ponder just last week!