Hello, my pretties.

This is going to be a very intense and rather rant-y post that I think just about everybody anywhere that’s ever been in a busy shopping center or grocery store, at any time ever will be able to connect with.~

Let us begin, shall we?

There seems to be this problem, a problem that when certain people get into stores, they have a mentality that they must group together and become obstacles. It doesn’t matter if it is grocery store, or a store meant for other items like clothes or home repair goods, they’re everywhere! Let’s call these people blockies. Henceforth, the mention of these people will be the utterance of the word ‘blockies’. Blockies are very common lately in a store I frequent, and on January ninth, the problem became noticeably more intense. So intense that I needed to write this.

No matter what time of day, or the day of the week, this place is slowly crawling with blockies, all massing together. The biggest problem, the thing I can never understand is the fact that these people are unable to comprehend the simple request of ‘excuse me’. I’m not even exaggerating when I say that I have counted saying excuse me upwards of 6 times at a raised enough voice that the blockies look up from whatever piece of fruit or other grocery item they’re examining for the tenth time. Now you’re thinking, ‘Okay..they looked up, obviously they’d move out of the way right?’ No. They don’t move, they simply stare for a second or two, sometimes making a face which can be likened with the one made when a loud noise pierces your eardrum, and then go back to staring at said grocery items they were examining.

Not only is there the uncanny ability to gather around fruits and vegetables, when the stockers are in full force, by the way, but the blockies are amazing at forming a walking barricade. Situations like being stuck behind blockies when you wish to immediately get to the other end of the store can be ones where self restraint comes in handy. Without the self restraint which would be able to hold back a raging beast, many times people would end up unlucky and forced out of my way, and inevitably to the concrete floor, as they are walking half that of normal walking speed.  It’s something I’ll never understand. How, and I really want to put strength behind the how..so, HOW can you walk so slow, and not even be over 40, have a limp, or have any crutch like device? I have, many times over, rolled my ankles, had high sprains, have been bitten by a rattlesnake and sometimes the right ankle can just be sore for the heck of it because of the previously mentioned things and guess what? I still manage to walk at least twice as fast as these blockies and that’s not even me walking fast in my own mind.

Now, that’s just a rant on the blockies in this particular store lately, but there are blockies all over and not to mention the ones which bring their spawn. The spawn of blockies has to be the most insufferable and infuriating thing to ever enter a store. The spawn are worse than the blockies in all ways, because not only do they inherit the ability to stand grouped together with others to block aisles and fruit/veggie bins, but they will run throughout multiple aisles, screaming and dodging in front of carts. I am almost to the point of losing count of how many times my shins have been forced to meet the metal bar at the front of the shopping cart.

Somehow, funnily enough, if you almost hit one of these spawn with your cart, or tap them as they run past because you didn’t see them coming around a corner, the parents give you a look as if you just cut out one of their kidneys in the middle of the store. And you know what? I’m to the point of not even caring. Oh, your brat fell down because they are running in a store, which can already barely hold two carts side by side in one aisle? Well! Too bad. I hope maybe they’ll learn to stay out of people’s way when in a crowded store, or to look around the corner before venturing out.

Oh. Here’s another suggestion, teach your spawn to not run in a store, and to say excuse me or sorry when running in front of people who just want their trip to be over with already. These spawn are just the same kind of brats that will go through a Walmart and scream bloody murder. They will scream because mommy decided to put back the random item they selected and then what happens when they scream? These parents just back right down and pull an ‘oh okay, it’s fine; have this thing you wanted, brat.’ That is…me getting off point. But it is another thing that enrages me beyond belief when these people are tugging along a train of children that are all screaming bloody murder over not being able to make a wreck of their path, and then the parents just give in. 

Now, let’s get back to the situation of blockies, eh? We’ve covered the spawn and their ways of destroying my shins, the grouped blockies in grocery stores who just mass together for no reason, and now we shall explore the ‘reunited blockies’. Sound hilarious, doesn’t it? The name is, yes, but the action and the experience certainly isn’t.

Reunited blockies might manage to be the most irritating out of all of these, when put on a scale of how much it gets to me. I’m sure you’ve seen these people, the people that pass each other in the store and suddenly go ‘Oh! You! I haven’t seen you since xyz!’ Somehow at this moment, despite being in a very loud and busy store, this reunion takes place between these people and they will not wait to meet out at the parking lot or possibly trade numbers, no, they will move to the middle or one edge of an (yet again, kind of small) aisle and proceed to cackle and converse. I will be in the store and need to get to some item right behind these blockies, and the thought is constantly in my mind that  this is utterly ridiculous!! How do you stand there and ignore the people giving you dirty looks for blocking them, how do you manage to lose all ability to accomplish courteousness just because you managed to see Debby from highschool fifteen years ago?

I mean, I guess it must be magical, really. But even when seeing someone I hadn’t seen in a long while, someone who had worked at a convenience store, I didn’t block the aisle, I moved my cart aside so I could speak to them for the few seconds they wished to. I didn’t lose the ability to be courteous to more than just one person, I was able to be thoughtful of anyone around. So why can’t these blockies? Why?

All these questions I ask will probably never be able to be answered, and I guess I’ll have to accept that, because I’m sure the people who become blockies don’t even know how they became one themselves. They’ve been stuck in a self-centered world of narcissism and selfishness so long, that the only thing they ever notice is anything to do with them, and how they’d benefit. Because surely, letting someone get to something behind you and interrupting your oh-so-important conversation for one minute, letting someone get to where you were going before you, or letting someone get just one hand on the same stack of produce you were looking at, because they look a bit tired of being there, doesn’t benefit you right then and there, does it?

Or wait..hey blockies and inconsiderate people in stores, how about this? Being just a bit nicer and not thinking about just you can be better in the long run. Heard of karma? I believe what comes around goes right back around and maybe hits just a bit harder when it comes to being thoughtless and selfish, so all of you in stores who are thinking about just you and what you need, listen to the people asking ‘excuse me’ multiple times. It might just do you a big bunch of good in the future. Yeah, I know. You want to get all that produce first, but there’s going to be more after they’re done getting what they need. Just be a smidgeon courteous. Mm’kay?

Thanks for reading everyone! Surprisingly (not) this was actually very fun to write out. ;D