Originally published at:
http://www.thelogicgirl.com


I was at my favourite grocery store today - Trader Joes. After getting my usual grocery stash, I got into a line to pay. There was a woman unloading her cart of groceries onto the counter for the cashier to scan. I turned to my left and busied myself looking at the stuff the store puts on display so as to tempt customers into making last-minute purchases. In this case, my distracting temptation were chocolate raspberry truffles.

When I finally tore my eyes away from the chocolates, I saw that an old woman had moved to my right, slightly ahead of me, her cart at a 45 degree angle to mine. It was easy enough to see that she was cutting the queue - whether unconsciously or deliberately, I could not tell at that moment.

Now I am usually a mild person towards anyone perceptibly older than myself - must be an Eastern thing drilled into me to show respect towards the eldery. But I am also a stickler for principles. And the principle here was that cutting the queue is always wrong (unless you are facing a desperate emergency), and this principle had been violated by someone.

I politely pointed out to the old woman that I was in line, to which she replied in a crotechy Russian-sounding voice that she had been there all along, and insisted that I had not been in the line. That truly irked me because it was not true, which meant that she had deliberately attempted to cut the queue.

If it had been anyone else other than a visibly eldery person, I would have told the person off. Nothing gets me more than a rude person. But this was an old woman! What could I do?!

My solution was to simply stand my ground - I suppose another person would have walked away from the situation. In fact, my boyfriend who had been with only moments before, conveniently disappeared from the scene because as he explained later, he did not want to be involved in a "fight" between two females.

When the old woman saw that I was not backing away, she simply turned her cart and cut the queue on the next line! I was shocked to witness her audacity. A middle-aged woman who was in that line and who had seen the exchange between me and the old lady, rolled her eyes, threw her hands up in the air, and moved her cart into the next line - safely far away from this uncontrollable queue-cutting ripened terror.

If the old woman had reacted differently, and had said sorry that she had not seen me, I would have let her get ahead of me. After all, I do not want to be disagreeable to people, especially to the eldery. But instead she showed a total disregard for me and the others around her and a lack of shame, which is all very unbecoming for a woman at her stage in life.

How very sad.

Beautiful Old Age

It ought to be lovely to be old
to be full of the peace that comes of experience
and wrinkled ripe fulfilment.

The wrinkled smile of completeness that follows a life
lived undaunted and unsoured with accepted lies
they would ripen like apples, and be scented like pippins
in their old age.

Soothing, old people should be, like apples
when one is tired of love.

Fragrant like yellowing leaves, and dim with the soft
stillness and satisfaction of autumn.

And a girl should say:
It must be wonderful to live and grow old.
Look at my mother, how rich and still she is!

And a young man should think: By Jove
my father has faced all weathers, but it's been a life!

D. H. Lawrence