I Have an Emergency!

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.