Anger management

The Vol Abroad recently opined on things that could/would make her "pull a Zidane". [If you've been under a rock the past couple of weeks, ... The French soccer guy who got ejected for head butting an Italian player in the World Cup final. See here if you really don't know the story.]

Her mini-rant reminded me on one of my all-time pet peeves. I think I've mentioned it before, but I really, really, really hate those folks who just leave their shopping carts out in the middle of parking lots and drive away. They (the carts) can roll away and damage other vehicles and they sometimes block potential parking spots from other shoppers. What really gets me, though, is the sheer arrogance of those people. They seem to believe the rules just do not apply to them. They're through with their carts, so why not just leave them where they are? GRRRR, it gets my goat.

Though I swore a holy oath not to, I stopped at the Southern Family Market the other day to pick up a couple of items. As I pulled into the parking lot I noticed a little old lady loading her groceries into her land yacht. What caught my eye was that after loading her bags into the trunk, she left the cart right behind her car. I thought she might have just forgotten it, but then I noticed there was an empty spot in front of her car. AHA -- she was planning to pull straight out and leave the cart right where it sat. She wasn't even going to have the courtesy to at least move it up to the front of her parking spot. "NAY," I said -- okay I didn't actually yell NAY, but you get the picture. I decided to thwart her nefarious plan by pulling into the vacant spot in front of her car.

So I grabbed the empty spot and headed into the store, chuckling delightedly all the way. When I got to the store, though, she was still just sitting in her car. I decided I'd wait around and see just what she did. Finally, she cranked up her "boat" and put it in reverse -- without getting out and moving the shopping cart. I watched as she eased back, made contact with the cart, and then continued backing out -- pushing the empty cart smack dab into the middle of the traffic aisle. She then put the car in drive and toodled off out of the parking lot! I couldn't believe it! Even if you could convince me that she had simply forgotten the cart, it was obvious that once she made contact, she made a conscious decision to continue pushing it more out into the way -- and then just leave it there! I'm sure her thought was something like, "I don't feel like getting out and moving it. Someone else will take care of it."

Though I do not, as a rule, advocate assaulting little old ladies in big cars, I would have head butted this woman -- and then just left her there. I'm sure someone else would have picked her up.

P.S. While it doesn't raise my ire quite to the level of bodily assault, I really hate it when people make "clever" word plays and then say, "No pun intended." It's obvious they DO intend to make a pun -- that's why they make their initial comments!