Have a Nice Day

There are few things in life that instantaneously push my buttons, but being ignored is number one on the list. It's particularly galling when done by people wearing smiley faces and vests that ask how I may be helped as they're walking AWAY from me.

Have a nice day was, therefore, the wrong thing for the poor girl at the local Wally World to say. I'd just been rudely prevented from using a self-service checkout by someone for whom I'm sure the job with America's number one retailer was going to be a career peak, and then told by the same neanderthal (truly an insult to neanderthals, I might add) to go through one of the regular check out lines because all the self-serves were broken with no evidence that this was the case. Normally, I take these things as the patient soul I try to be. Five minutes of backed-up checkout line later, with no additional checkers at any of the dozen or so empty lanes, and several people who should have known better on the staff ignoring the situation, I left the cart and merchandise in the lane and headed for the local Target. When the aforementioned PG wished me a nice day, which it most assuredly had not been, a switch in my head was tripped, and I went off with an improvisational riff on the rudeness and idiocy of the place. Had I spent more time in line, I might have been better rehearsed, but all in all, it was a good effort.

In contrast to Wally World, the staff at Target was polite, the merchandise much more pleasantly displayed, and the prices every bit as appealing. Guess who gets first nod for my future business?