Same to You, Lady!

So my wife and I are at Kroger, a food chain here in NC, for our weekly shopping. When we get to checkout, we see the only open lane is the express lane, and there's about six carts in line.

I go to the self-checkout area and tell the employee there that the only open lane is Express. So she says, "OK, I'll call for someone." A moment later, I hear the announcement for someone to come up to checkout.

Another moment later, I see an employee walk to a lane and she says, "I can help someone here." I navigate our buggy into the lane and start unloading. While doing so, some nutcase lady comes up to me and starts laying into me about taking that lane. She said when a new lane opens, they usually take the next in line, "not the first one who can run over there and jump in the lane!"

I said, "Excuse me, but were it not for me asking, this lane wouldn't have even been opened." She continues, "Some gentleman YOU are! Blah, blah, blah. I can tell YOU'RE not from The South!"

I said, "How can you tell? Because I don't have a bug up my butt?"

Well, actually I don't think that last part came out out loud, but I kinda wish it had.

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Worst Men's Room I've ever had the Pleasure to Visit

If you've read my post about mysterious men's room doors or the one about toilet seat noises from the ladies' room, or even the one about moronic toilet seatcovers, you may believe I'm hung up on the commode.

Regardless, the experience I had last night in the restroom of a popular restaurant at which we hang was ridiculous.

I excused myself to visit this restroom from hell. I walk into the stall, and the door wouldn't lock. In fact, the lock mechanism was just hanging there. I even risked being locked into this devil-possessed stall by attempting to wiggle the dangling lock parts into some semblance of claspage, but to no avail.

So I gave up and entered the only remaining stall. The lock worked fine, the auto-flush mechanism, on the other hand, was a different story. As I sat there, not quite finished with the business at hand, the toilet flushed. And not once, but about three times. I wanted to smash the whole thing to bits.

My next order of business was to wash my hands. I approached the sinks with the auto-start faucets and pumped a glob of soap onto my palm. I placed my hands in Sink #1 - no water. I waved my hands in Sink #1, Sink #2 - nothing.

Sink #3 was my final hope. Nope. At this point I was swinging on the bar over Stall #1 (the one with the unshackled shackle) praying the motion would set Sink #3 dribbling something, anything, I'd have settled for unrecycled kitchen sink water at this point. Nothing.

Having fallen off this vertical stripper pole from still having liquid soap in my hands, I vowed to get the hell out of that demon room of the devil as quick as my aching, wobbling legs could take me. But I figured at least I should wipe the soap off my hands first. Walking over to the auto-dispense paper towel unit, and seeing the reflection of fear in my face through the mirror, I meekly waved my hand over the electric eye. Voila! Results! I got about two inches of towel released. I kept waving to get enough towel to clean the now gelling soap off my hands, fearing my wife would believe I stuck her with the check again.

I managed to get most of this goop off my hands, wiped as much of the slop out of the nooks and crannies of my wedding ring, and looked for the paper receptacle to toss my smidgen of trash.

Wasn't one anywhere. Of course.

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