Thanks for the elegy for my guilt. I am going to be quicker to forgive myself and everybody else the next time I find them or myself being the over-the-limit shit/shits in the 15-item-limit line. Great think/ thank piece!
Oh, I don’t know that I try to look at all sides. (In these times, some sides don’t deserve much of our energy, imo.) I think I was looking mostly at myself, you know?
I agree. But you did a great job of showing, not telling. I felt like I was right there with you, and I was feeling much as you were. And I still think in the end, you allowed for a glimpse into each person's motivations and reasons, whether you agreed with them or not. These are rough times, with so many people's psyches completely frayed. 💕
This speaks to me because I LOVE RULES. As a kid I was always pointing out rule breakers, because I was trying to understand why it was happening. Did they not see the sign? Were they special in some way? Probably how I ended up with "the seat belt sign is ON" for a career but that's another therapy meeting.
You know who deserves all of our anger and resentment and shin kicks is whoever up the WinCo line decides that people are fine to wait in lines so long that Old Man and Tea Man are ready to go fist to cuffs over extra items. As you mentioned you were there at a busy time, but if that time is always busy, why not fully staff the registers? I know, because that costs money and WinCo would rather have more chang ching than offer you a better experience. I am now pleasantly surprised when anything goes right when I leave the house, I attempt radical acceptance for the rest of it. Is ranting an Olympic sport yet? I'm going for gold.
I love your rants, so rant on! I also ended up in a career that loves to be about rules (teacher/librarian)—which are always about some greater good. It’s hard to turn that off, isn’t it?
And I want to think that maybe WinCo just doesn’t have enough staff, but it doesn’t matter what day or time of day I go there, there are never enough registers open. Never. So it feels pretty damn on-purpose. To add insult to injury, they just got rid of the self-checkout registers, so the problem is even worse than it was just a short time ago. Man, I hate that place. I want to love it, because it is majority worker-owned. But I hate it.
Holy moly Rita. It's so good. The story about a thing that's really about something else dissected in a way that feels important in this strange climate ( that I'm observing from the outside, since I'm not in the states). You're giving me a clear view into the otherness of these times. I was there in that store sharing these thoughts. Visceral. Thank you.
Aw, thank you for these kind words. Everything’s always meta for me! These times are so weird and strange. On the surface, nothing has really changed, which contributes to a sense that the big things happening are not real or not that important. But I know they are. I think we’re all (those of us following closely) are all holding our breath.
Rita, my amygdala was with your amygdala in that store, between those men, also set off by the picture of that line.
I love the kind generosity of this piece. The invitation to remember our humanity within troublesome times, particularly this, "Maybe we can tell ourselves that that’s what they need today, and if they get what they need today, they might make a different choice tomorrow. Maybe we can all try to be kinder to each other than those who aren’t stuck in shitty grocery stores have been to us. At the very least, maybe we can take some small comfort in hanging onto our humanity, the thing that makes us assume that people like Older White Guy are doing the best they can with what they have." And what a line!!!
I think that line was taken on some holiday. I want to say Valentine’s Day. But it can get like that on regular days, too. It’s terrible! And demoralizing. And I’m sorry that you have an amygdala like mine. I have to talk with mine A LOT. Very hard to override it.
I'm generally rather mellow in the grocery store or pharmacy, people annoy me but I let it go easily. Didn't used to be, but one advantage of getting older is my broader perspective on all of life.
I like, and sadly agree with: "I think about how people who aren’t getting what they need are so much more likely to turn on each other, rather than to each other." Aren't we seeing more of that behavior every day now. *sigh*
I would have bet that you are a mellow grocery store shopper. I am much of the time, too. But sometimes WinCo really challenges my better nature. This was one of them. (I think this whole post was my trying to gentle parent myself.)
Wow, Rita. So much, so much here. I love the way this takes its narrative time, the way we are in that line with you , and your thoughts, for quite some time. By the time you are walking out of the store, we are walking through that parking lot with you, putting our heads together trying to find a way to be able to get in the car and be willing to come back again.
Have you read Frannie and Zooey? You are like Zooey at his best. His consecrated chicken soup line about Bessie, his perfect but very problematic and dated naming of “ the fat lady”— you gave us the 2025 version in your Old WinCo Man.
How have I gotten this old without reading Frannie and Zooey? (Oh, I know. I hated Catcher in the Rye, which I never finished! Maybe I need to give Salinger another chance? But I don’t know if there are enough minutes left in my life to spend them reading books by misogynistic men who mistreated young women.) But more importantly, I love the metaphor hiding in your comment, and will now be thinking about all the ways in which we are all “putting our heads together trying to find a way to get in the car and be willing to come back again.”
Ha! Yeah- I saw Franny &Zooey through the lens of my mother’s great love for it. That New Yorker magazine was her life raft in the Mississippi delta on the 50’s-60’s so I will always appreciate it for that reason- misogynistic assholes gave me an education, movies that are in my dna, and a religion I no longer practice, so I hear you!!! Suffice it to say, it is the every-man we are called and forced to co exist with. I think it helped her find a way to fight as good a small fight as she could in a horrifically racist time and place. And I think of her quite a bit right now.
Grateful to be muttering through parking lots with you! Thank you for this piece. I am in awe of you being able to capture it so vividly and render it so quickly!!
I really appreciate all you are saying here. I have a similar education, film, and religious history! As for the rendering...my bathroom needs cleaning, my laundry is piling up, and we haven't been eating especially well this week. When I haven't been writing, I've been skating. Mama said there'd be days (weeks? months? years?) like this.
I am so thrilled you are skating! Laundry works it self out and this is why our misogynistic god created pizza. …. Go skate and write while you are able. 💜 wish I could deliver you soup.
Thanks for taking me through the journey of WinCo and your thoughts and emotions. I was right there with you. And I have been in that line with my thoughts and misplaced feelings, struggling with all of the grief and loss and anger that I'm projecting, even though, and often, the person in front or back happens also to be a jerk.
Thank you, Paulette. I think we’ve all been in that line! I love the way you remind me here that contradictory things can be true. That guy deserves some compassion and he also happened to be a jerk. Testing me to be a better version of myself. (I’ll give myself a C on that one.)
Love the pics you took. I am not an older white dude but I push the express limits occasionally along with other rules. You have given me food for thought. Am I a privileged middle aged white lady or a badass or both?
I'll vote for both 🙂 I'm no angel; I've occasionally pushed the limit myself. I like to think only when the lines have been short and when I didn't realize it until I was unloading. But I can't say for sure. I wish the guy had just said, "sorry," you know? It would have knocked my pettiness off its pedestal and down to earth where it belongs.
Oh, Rita. This ride. This godforsaken (I'm sure some would insist not) ride we all have to be on every single day. And like you, I feel myself climbing a hill I think I'm prepared to die on but then realize I'm not actually as ready as I thought, confrontation being as inclined as it is to go terribly wrong. Call it fear, call it grace--whatever it is that causes us to rethink as you've so richly described here, I guess I'm grateful for it. It's so much easier to put our blame on the closest target rather than summoning the wisdom you tapped into here. Thank you for capturing so well, with honest emotions, what we have all felt and what is all too close to the surface now.
There are so many things I guess I'm grateful for these days, but grateful isn't feeling as good as it seems it should, is it? I'm glad you're on the ride with me. We can hold onto each other through the curves, yes?
I really relate to your quandary. I judge rule-breakers in public places like traffic and grocery store lines (and government buildings). Then again, as an artist I want the full freedom to break rules when I think it's not going to affect anyone else negatively. But maybe freedom is freedom is freedom. One of my mantras is to say to myself: "There are no rules". It sometimes helps me to stop grinding my gears over what other people are doing. :) And super thanks for the shout out!
This made me smile because: Same, same. Sometimes I think I want there to be rules so that I can break them. Unless I really want there to be rules. And then I want everyone to follow them. Good thing I'm not in charge of the world. And you're welcome!
I would have been annoyed but let it go. I appreciate hearing from you when so many things are changing in the world and at home. Take care of yourself <3
I appreciate hearing from you, too. And I know you would have let it go and not ruminated on it for two days like I did. 🙂 You're more sensible than me.
This was brilliantly presented - it's like I was there and I was *anxious* lol! Having worked with the public for 39 years in a library setting, I have had to diffuse many situations like this on a daily basis. People have literally come to blows over exchanges that start with: "Where's my cigarette? That's MY cigarette!" It's really frightening. (Yes! At the library.)
And statistically, it's nearly always men who are lightning quick to anger over nothing. It's really, really tiresome, unnecessary and frustrating. But, as you note here (and the Buddhist-types would agree) we should be trying to look beyond the behaviour and ask ourselves "Are you sure?" when the judgements start to kick in. These are awful days for all of us right now - and I'm in Canada, also afraid to refresh the screen for even weirder news developments.
Thanks for the elegy for my guilt. I am going to be quicker to forgive myself and everybody else the next time I find them or myself being the over-the-limit shit/shits in the 15-item-limit line. Great think/ thank piece!
I am not pure in this myself. (Of course I’m not. Is anyone?) Love you.
Thought-provoking read, Rita. Thanks for trying to look at all sides. It can be difficult to do in these times. 💕
Oh, I don’t know that I try to look at all sides. (In these times, some sides don’t deserve much of our energy, imo.) I think I was looking mostly at myself, you know?
I agree. But you did a great job of showing, not telling. I felt like I was right there with you, and I was feeling much as you were. And I still think in the end, you allowed for a glimpse into each person's motivations and reasons, whether you agreed with them or not. These are rough times, with so many people's psyches completely frayed. 💕
Thank you, Sue. Your words help me feel seen.
This speaks to me because I LOVE RULES. As a kid I was always pointing out rule breakers, because I was trying to understand why it was happening. Did they not see the sign? Were they special in some way? Probably how I ended up with "the seat belt sign is ON" for a career but that's another therapy meeting.
You know who deserves all of our anger and resentment and shin kicks is whoever up the WinCo line decides that people are fine to wait in lines so long that Old Man and Tea Man are ready to go fist to cuffs over extra items. As you mentioned you were there at a busy time, but if that time is always busy, why not fully staff the registers? I know, because that costs money and WinCo would rather have more chang ching than offer you a better experience. I am now pleasantly surprised when anything goes right when I leave the house, I attempt radical acceptance for the rest of it. Is ranting an Olympic sport yet? I'm going for gold.
I love your rants, so rant on! I also ended up in a career that loves to be about rules (teacher/librarian)—which are always about some greater good. It’s hard to turn that off, isn’t it?
And I want to think that maybe WinCo just doesn’t have enough staff, but it doesn’t matter what day or time of day I go there, there are never enough registers open. Never. So it feels pretty damn on-purpose. To add insult to injury, they just got rid of the self-checkout registers, so the problem is even worse than it was just a short time ago. Man, I hate that place. I want to love it, because it is majority worker-owned. But I hate it.
Holy moly Rita. It's so good. The story about a thing that's really about something else dissected in a way that feels important in this strange climate ( that I'm observing from the outside, since I'm not in the states). You're giving me a clear view into the otherness of these times. I was there in that store sharing these thoughts. Visceral. Thank you.
Aw, thank you for these kind words. Everything’s always meta for me! These times are so weird and strange. On the surface, nothing has really changed, which contributes to a sense that the big things happening are not real or not that important. But I know they are. I think we’re all (those of us following closely) are all holding our breath.
Rita, my amygdala was with your amygdala in that store, between those men, also set off by the picture of that line.
I love the kind generosity of this piece. The invitation to remember our humanity within troublesome times, particularly this, "Maybe we can tell ourselves that that’s what they need today, and if they get what they need today, they might make a different choice tomorrow. Maybe we can all try to be kinder to each other than those who aren’t stuck in shitty grocery stores have been to us. At the very least, maybe we can take some small comfort in hanging onto our humanity, the thing that makes us assume that people like Older White Guy are doing the best they can with what they have." And what a line!!!
I think that line was taken on some holiday. I want to say Valentine’s Day. But it can get like that on regular days, too. It’s terrible! And demoralizing. And I’m sorry that you have an amygdala like mine. I have to talk with mine A LOT. Very hard to override it.
I'm generally rather mellow in the grocery store or pharmacy, people annoy me but I let it go easily. Didn't used to be, but one advantage of getting older is my broader perspective on all of life.
I like, and sadly agree with: "I think about how people who aren’t getting what they need are so much more likely to turn on each other, rather than to each other." Aren't we seeing more of that behavior every day now. *sigh*
I would have bet that you are a mellow grocery store shopper. I am much of the time, too. But sometimes WinCo really challenges my better nature. This was one of them. (I think this whole post was my trying to gentle parent myself.)
Wow, Rita. So much, so much here. I love the way this takes its narrative time, the way we are in that line with you , and your thoughts, for quite some time. By the time you are walking out of the store, we are walking through that parking lot with you, putting our heads together trying to find a way to be able to get in the car and be willing to come back again.
Have you read Frannie and Zooey? You are like Zooey at his best. His consecrated chicken soup line about Bessie, his perfect but very problematic and dated naming of “ the fat lady”— you gave us the 2025 version in your Old WinCo Man.
I feel calmer for this, and not alone.
How have I gotten this old without reading Frannie and Zooey? (Oh, I know. I hated Catcher in the Rye, which I never finished! Maybe I need to give Salinger another chance? But I don’t know if there are enough minutes left in my life to spend them reading books by misogynistic men who mistreated young women.) But more importantly, I love the metaphor hiding in your comment, and will now be thinking about all the ways in which we are all “putting our heads together trying to find a way to get in the car and be willing to come back again.”
Ha! Yeah- I saw Franny &Zooey through the lens of my mother’s great love for it. That New Yorker magazine was her life raft in the Mississippi delta on the 50’s-60’s so I will always appreciate it for that reason- misogynistic assholes gave me an education, movies that are in my dna, and a religion I no longer practice, so I hear you!!! Suffice it to say, it is the every-man we are called and forced to co exist with. I think it helped her find a way to fight as good a small fight as she could in a horrifically racist time and place. And I think of her quite a bit right now.
Grateful to be muttering through parking lots with you! Thank you for this piece. I am in awe of you being able to capture it so vividly and render it so quickly!!
I really appreciate all you are saying here. I have a similar education, film, and religious history! As for the rendering...my bathroom needs cleaning, my laundry is piling up, and we haven't been eating especially well this week. When I haven't been writing, I've been skating. Mama said there'd be days (weeks? months? years?) like this.
I am so thrilled you are skating! Laundry works it self out and this is why our misogynistic god created pizza. …. Go skate and write while you are able. 💜 wish I could deliver you soup.
I wish we could eat soup together! Or pizza. I love pizza, no matter who made it. 🙂
We will find a way!
Thanks for taking me through the journey of WinCo and your thoughts and emotions. I was right there with you. And I have been in that line with my thoughts and misplaced feelings, struggling with all of the grief and loss and anger that I'm projecting, even though, and often, the person in front or back happens also to be a jerk.
Thank you, Paulette. I think we’ve all been in that line! I love the way you remind me here that contradictory things can be true. That guy deserves some compassion and he also happened to be a jerk. Testing me to be a better version of myself. (I’ll give myself a C on that one.)
And thank you for reminding me that we're all being asked to be a better version of ourselves.
Love the pics you took. I am not an older white dude but I push the express limits occasionally along with other rules. You have given me food for thought. Am I a privileged middle aged white lady or a badass or both?
I'll vote for both 🙂 I'm no angel; I've occasionally pushed the limit myself. I like to think only when the lines have been short and when I didn't realize it until I was unloading. But I can't say for sure. I wish the guy had just said, "sorry," you know? It would have knocked my pettiness off its pedestal and down to earth where it belongs.
Oh, Rita. This ride. This godforsaken (I'm sure some would insist not) ride we all have to be on every single day. And like you, I feel myself climbing a hill I think I'm prepared to die on but then realize I'm not actually as ready as I thought, confrontation being as inclined as it is to go terribly wrong. Call it fear, call it grace--whatever it is that causes us to rethink as you've so richly described here, I guess I'm grateful for it. It's so much easier to put our blame on the closest target rather than summoning the wisdom you tapped into here. Thank you for capturing so well, with honest emotions, what we have all felt and what is all too close to the surface now.
There are so many things I guess I'm grateful for these days, but grateful isn't feeling as good as it seems it should, is it? I'm glad you're on the ride with me. We can hold onto each other through the curves, yes?
Yes!
I really relate to your quandary. I judge rule-breakers in public places like traffic and grocery store lines (and government buildings). Then again, as an artist I want the full freedom to break rules when I think it's not going to affect anyone else negatively. But maybe freedom is freedom is freedom. One of my mantras is to say to myself: "There are no rules". It sometimes helps me to stop grinding my gears over what other people are doing. :) And super thanks for the shout out!
This made me smile because: Same, same. Sometimes I think I want there to be rules so that I can break them. Unless I really want there to be rules. And then I want everyone to follow them. Good thing I'm not in charge of the world. And you're welcome!
I would have been annoyed but let it go. I appreciate hearing from you when so many things are changing in the world and at home. Take care of yourself <3
I appreciate hearing from you, too. And I know you would have let it go and not ruminated on it for two days like I did. 🙂 You're more sensible than me.
This was brilliantly presented - it's like I was there and I was *anxious* lol! Having worked with the public for 39 years in a library setting, I have had to diffuse many situations like this on a daily basis. People have literally come to blows over exchanges that start with: "Where's my cigarette? That's MY cigarette!" It's really frightening. (Yes! At the library.)
And statistically, it's nearly always men who are lightning quick to anger over nothing. It's really, really tiresome, unnecessary and frustrating. But, as you note here (and the Buddhist-types would agree) we should be trying to look beyond the behaviour and ask ourselves "Are you sure?" when the judgements start to kick in. These are awful days for all of us right now - and I'm in Canada, also afraid to refresh the screen for even weirder news developments.
Thanks for another great read as always, Rita.