There seemed to be more rude people than usual out this past weekend.
Saturday night we went to Cafe Borrone as we usually do on Saturdays, but since I was assembling furniture we didn’t get there until almost 8 pm, rather than our usual 6-6:30. The place was packed – a little surprising since I think Stanford is done for the year – but after walking around for a couple of minutes some folks got up from a table we were near and we went over to it. I was distracted by something for a moment, but when I turned around a woman had come over to Debbi and was telling her that they were ahead of us “in line” and that the table was theirs. For whatever reason – probably shock at her sheer gall – we gave her the table, but I argued with her for a minute about this ridiculous notion of “in line” – what line? I’ve been going to Borrone for 12 years, and plenty of other coffee shops for longer than that, and getting a table has always involved getting to the table before someone else does. As Debbi said later, if they wanted to make sure she got the table, they should have had someone waiting in that area of the cafe, not have both been standing around elsewhere.
On our way out I told her that I hope they’d have a terrible time. And I hope they did.
We went to Amicis for dinner and had a perfectly pleasant time sitting by the fireplace there. Then we came home and spent the evening reading in front of our own fireplace.
Sunday we were shopping at Safeway and I went over to grab some chicken sausage for the barbecue on Memorial Day. An employee was stocking the shelves, and a couple of other people were hanging around waiting to get in. One of them left and I said “excuse me” to the other guy who was standing there talking on the phone, and who had just been handed something by the employee. He didn’t move, so I stepped around him. Then I heard him say, “Well I’m not picking that up.” I picked out the sausage I wanted, and he said to me, “You realize you just knocked that out of my hand.” I looked at a package of sausage on the floor and I said, “No, I had no idea.” He said something like, “Well, you should be more careful.” I said, “Well, I was trying to get by, and I said ‘excuse me’, and you didn’t move, and you’re standing there talking on the phone…” He sighed and turned away.
I handed the dropped package to the employee and we commiserated about people on the phone living in their own little world. (Usually when I call someone in a supermarket I try to go off into a corner to talk to them.) Sure enough, later on we went down an aisle and there he was standing in the middle of the aisle, not moving to let us get by. He didn’t even have a cart or a basket.
This last story is a little more reasonable, but still a little weird. I ran by OSH on Memorial Day morning to pick up some more pads for our dining table chairs. Lots of places had sales this weekend, so it was pretty busy. I got into a pretty short line, and the guy in front of me was buying a big set of shears and three packs of flowers, and he had a coupon. Not bad, right? He tells the cashier he wants to pay for the shears separately from the flowers. She’s a bit croggled and says that he won’t get the discount on the flowers from the coupon if he buys them separately. He repeats that he wants to buy them separately. Then he pays cash for each transaction (though both are well under $20), so she has to fish out change for each transaction.
When I handed her my one item I said, “That’s all.” I was very tempted to say, “And I’ll pay for it in one transaction,”, but I decided that would be a little too snarky since the guy hadn’t gotten very far yet. But I’ve gone to this cashier before and I’m pretty sure it would have amused her.
It’s not really unreasonable to buy items separately, but it did seem a little weird.
Anyway, hopefully all these rude people will stay home next weekend so we don’t have to deal with them. One can only hope.