ENCOUNTERING RUDENESS: the supermarket

A supermarket may seem like a "super" place, but these bustling epicenters of gluttony can be veritable petri dishes for unnecessarily rude behavior. A supermarket always has an unsavory underbelly and, usually, it's the people who work there. Just politely force a supermarket employee to let you into a store's bathroom. On the way you'll see a hallway and a break room filled with folded-up boxes labeled "oranges," "ding dongs," and "home enema kits." This says a lot about supermarket employees. First of all, who leaves so many boxes lying around? Maybe they did it to complement all the sticky brown linoleum, but more likely these people just live like savages. No wonder they are so unhappy. Also, some of the boxes are big enough to make substantial forts out of. Let's try to demonstrate some creativity, people.

Supermarket employees tend to have the attitude of "look, I don't WANT to be here." But what supermarket employees don't realize is that I don't WANT to be there either. If it were up to me, humans would have stolen the secret of photosynthesis from plants long ago. Come on evolution, we need this.

But it's not just the employees. Complete strangers, evidently unable to handle the stress of produce, roll their eyes, sigh demonstratively, and generally act like big jerks when spoken to. This happens on a routine basis, noticeably more so in supermarkets in urban centers on the east coast. It's usually not an outright insult but a tacit implication of "I don't want to talk to you. I obviously hate sharing and didn't learn a damn thing from preschool. Want to play duck duck goose? I'll fight you." Sometimes it's difficult to respond to that kind of attitude. I say we do something, by silently walking away less and calling people "dickless" more. There's no reason we as a nation shouldn't be rude right back.

Watch as this baby is confronted with rudeness and struggles at first to find a response, but then digs deep to send a lasting message:


uh oh, that baby just got dissed


think, baby, think!


nicely done

And watch as this lady deftly handles a produce worker who looks like Moby (so many of them do) with a ready response.


this lady knows what's up in the produce section

See, it's not that hard. Just carry around an insult in your head in case you need to use it. I like "assbag" or "dicksmoke," and sometimes even the more obscure "jerkfuck" (what does that even mean?). Don't hesitate: when someone is rude to you, call them a name before it's too late.

power to the people
Dr. Koaladick