I was recently in Target and thought I might quickly become
a witness to the latest YouTube viral sensation of a customer throwing a
tantrum. Frankly, for a moment, at
least, I kind of thought that a fist fight might break out between two ladies
and wasn’t sure if I should be excited by the prospect or completely terrified.
It kind of happened like this… The checkout lines in Target were
particularly long on this day, especially since this very Target is one of the
only low traffic Target’s I’ve experienced in North County. I believe the time was around noon on a
weekday and so most shoppers were probably there over their lunch hour, just
like myself, trying to squeeze a few errands in before getting back to the
office.
After waiting a short amount of time, I was eventually next
in line after a woman that I’d guess was around my age or slightly older. She was well put together, with lots of
jewelry and accessories, and clearly made a decent amount of money in whatever
it was that she did for a living. I
would say that she gave off the vibe of possibly being a bit snooty but not
altogether unapproachable, if that helps any.
Just as she was about to be rung up at the register, another lady
pushing a shopping cart containing a large child car seat frantically rolled up
and started saying rather loudly, “I have an emergency…I have an
emergency…” She wheeled her cart behind
our line, thus to the back of the clerk who was ringing up our purchases, and
more or less tapped the young girl on the shoulder. “I have an emergency…can I be rung up??!”
The young female Target employee who was probably all of
about 16 years old looked rather confused on what to do and simply managed to
mumble an “…uhhhh….” After a couple
seconds, she sheepishly said, “Well, the line is on this side,” pointing to
where we, the woman in front of me and myself, were standing. “You’d have to pay on this side,” meaning
that the card reader wasn’t movable.
Upon hearing this, the frantic lady looked mildly put out
but started wheeling her cart around the back of the lane, basically where
you’d pick up your purchases after paying for them. She abruptly stopped when the lady in front
of me didn’t move away from the card reader and instead looked terribly
confused, eventually asking, “Um…what’s going on?”
The frantic lady stated, “I guess I need to ring this up
over here,” pointing to the side with the card reader.
The lady in front of me had a look of both confusion and complete
annoyance. She looked around briefly and
pointed towards the back of the line saying, “The line starts back there.”
The frantic lady now looked desperate. “But I have an emergency! I need to go!”
The lady in front of me looked at the Target employee who
simply shrugged her shoulders, in an effort to more or less insinuate ‘it’s
your choice if you want to let her in’.
The lady in front of me simply stood for quite a few seconds, pondering
the whole situation and clearly was taken aback by the nerve of the frantic
lady. In the meantime, the frantic lady
again stated, “Please??! I have an
emergency? Please???!!!”
We all stood with eyes glued on the lady in front of me,
patiently waiting for the verdict. Like
a judge in a murder trial, silence hung in the room while the lady looked back
and forth, pondering, considering, etc. It
then became evident that she was administering the dreaded thumbs down
response. She turned back to the frantic
lady and repeated once again with more attitude this time, “The line begins
over there.”
It was right about now that I thought a fist fight would
break out. The frantic lady was
completely in shock by this response.
“Oh my god!! I have an
EMERGENCY! I can’t believe it!” she
said, all the while shaking her head in disbelief. “The NERVE of some people! Oh my god!!!!” She then began pushing her cart away and
yelled out, “Guess I’ll just have to go to self check out then!”
The lady in front of me simply smirked in righteousness and
mumbled quietly towards the Target clerk and the rest of us in line, “…well, I
only have so much time on my lunch hour too...”
It was apparent that she didn’t buy the “emergency” story whatsoever and
felt that she had really “shown her”.
It was at this point that the lady behind me in line chimed
in, “Some people. You know, she was
acting really weird when she came in, too.”
By the time my purchases were getting rung up, I said to the young female
Target clerk, “Well, personally, I think I would have just let her ring the
thing up,” in which the Target clerk gently smiled and agreed.
I can’t deny that I really find this whole event rather
intriguing. What I find so interesting
about this situation is that apparently very few people can even believe that
the lady could actually have an
emergency. I mean, this is how far we’ve
come in our society with crying wolf, preying on other’s good will, and so
on. We’re apparently so used to the
concept of ‘fake’ everything at this point that we can’t even handle the
concept of letting someone cut in front of us in a Target line, lest we feel
like a real sucker. It’s quite sad, no? Then again, how does one tell the true “emergencies” from the fakers, and better
yet who’s to judge whose emergency is “emergency” enough to cut in a shopping
line? Just like with people who stand on
street corners with signs that say that they’re homeless and need help, we
apparently as a society no longer believe that anyone is genuine in their cry
for help, and we simply assume that everyone around us is running some sort of a
scam. I mean, I don’t know whether the
lady had a true emergency or not. How
could I, right? Still, she wasn’t asking
for money or anything…she was simply asking to cut in a shopping line, and that
doesn’t really involve anything from anyone except perhaps an additional wait
of about 2 minutes, considering she just had one item to ring up. I guess we apparently as a society feel like
that’s not worth the risk. It’s just
interesting…and very sad at the same time.
It basically sounds to me like if you’re ever in need of real help from
a stranger, the best thing you can do is simply stay quiet and suck it up. Perhaps that’s what our society has come to,
and if so, well, that’s pretty depressing.
I’m not really suggesting that the woman in front of me in
line did anything wrong for who knows what the real story is behind the frantic
lady’s actions. I’m simply pointing out
the fact that she automatically assumed it was a scam, and weirder yet is the
lady behind me who felt the need to point out that the frantic lady was acting
strange on the way into Target and automatically tied that in to the scam
mentality. For me personally, I would
have tied it the other way around.
Still, what kind of legitimate emergency involves the
purchase of an infant car seat? If
someone was in that desperate need of help, wouldn’t you just leave the car
seat behind and run out of Target in order to get to your destination as
quickly as possible? And why not just
use self check out in the first place? These
are all very valid questions. I guess
there’s a small chance that she might need the car seat for the emergency but
that seems slightly odd, no? Again, damn
good questions and who knows what the answers are.
In the end, after paying for my purchases, I pushed my cart
out of the exit of Target and nearly got run over by a car that zipped past me going
at least about 40+ miles per hour in what would normally be a 10 mph zone. As the car whizzed by me and I stood there
flabbergasted by the near miss, I noticed that the driver was indeed the
frantic lady. Perhaps it was an emergency
after all? Who knows. I guess at least I didn’t end up BEING the
emergency, with getting run over and needing to be rushed to the hospital for
my injuries. If that did happen, I think
we can already bet that someone would have thought it was a scam.
