Full head of steam

It's been years since I've been incensed enough to step forward and give someone a good telling off.

And it happened when I was in a particularly good frame of mind, too, having just come from the cardiologist and been told my heart is in fine fettle.  So now after months of this test and that test, my brain has been verified as in good shape and there's nothing wrong with my heart, it's looking like it is definitely those little crystals that hang out in our ears that are causing my vertigo, benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV).  The young specialist was just lovely, I even paused as I was leaving to congratulate him on his interpersonal skills, told him he was top notch.  I wondered if I was a bit presumptuous but he seemed delighted to hear it. 

As I was leaving the hospital I was thinking about the many fine young people it has been my pleasure to meet lately.

Barely an hour later I was in a queue at the supermarket with an elderly man leaning on his trolley in front of me.  I noticed a young girl join the queue behind me and that she had only one item in her hand, so offered for her to go through ahead of me.  A thank you would have been nice.  Instead she asked the elderly man if she could go through in front of him, too and when he nodded OK, she signaled her two friends to join her.  They each had one item in their hand and put through each item separately, so there were three transactions.  That's when my hackles started to rise.  The girl at the checkout processed the transactions and pointed out to them there is an Express Checkout for a small number of items.  I hadn't heard what she said (she told me later) but I did hear the first girl say, "Shut up.  We have a movie to get to."  

That was my red flag.  I practically pushed the older man aside to get past him and let those bs cop a good blast.  How dare they? The gentleman and I had been kind to them and they behave like that?  Immediate apologies were demanded and when one of the girls started to do so I told her to wait, let's hear it from the one who's been doing all the talking first.  Gee, she didn't want to either but the supervisor had appeared by then and I think she felt outnumbered.  She most ungraciously apologised.  Oh, how I wanted to make her stand there and do it again but I didn't want to push my luck.  

The only person embarrassed by the incident was the young check out girl, she assured me it didn't matter, she was used to it.  Which really did upset me.

The elderly man invited me to go home with him and sort out his grandkids!

When I'd finished checking out, the supervisor stopped me to say thank you, said I was her shopper of the month.

But wait, there's more.  I got out to the car and realized I'd put my car keys down somewhere in the store.  I sheepishly returned, saw the supervisor and as I was talking to her a staff member walked up to her with some lost car keys.  I might not be very good at looking after myself but I'm happy that I can still jump to the defense of others.