The Woman At The Store

I'm a pretty amenable person. If a stranger wants to kick up a conversation somewhere about something we are both doing or looking at buying - whatever - I'm all good. Only if I'm in a hurry will I dismiss the conversation - but politely of course.

Well, I went to Safeway on the way home from work today. They have chicken breast on sale for 99 cents per pound, I wanted to get at least 4 packages of it. Of course, GETTING to Safeway was an adventure in itself with rude and stupid drivers attempting all kinds of dangerous and idiot moves on the road.

I say attempted because what people can get away with in cutting me off in the semi - they cannot get away with when I'm in my car.

Case in point. I'm driving the semi today - I leave enough space between my truck and the vehicle in front of me that I can shut the truck down in case "something" happens. You will see many truck drivers lagging behind vehicles - it's not because they are necessarily slow, it's because they NEED that room to slow down if traffic does so in front of them in a hurry.

When YOU cut into that space, you are literally taking your life into your own hands. I don't say that lightly, either. It's not a joke. The situation may not EVER happen when you cut in front of that truck like that hundreds of times per year, but in that one occasion where it might happen, you will be having a semi crushing you to death becuase of your impatience.

That's usually what it is, too. People waiting until they are 100 feet from the exit they want to get off on - notwithstanding the fact that they are fully 6 lanes away from that exit and will have to cut off all kinds of traffic to get to it - and nowadays? People couldn't care less.

And just as unsympathetic as life is, there are people killed on Phoenix freeways on a DAILY basis. BECAUSE of that stupid stuff people are doing out there.

Man, I have double-digressed. Okay, well- a lady driving an SUV decided that she wanted in front of me on a surface street. She simply inserted herself there without any warning at all. When she did so, she hit the brakes. I hit my horn and then got over into the other lane. There was NO valid reason for this woman to do that.

Oh, here's another little dandy that happened today. I was on the 60 heading west to go back to the branch from Florence. I was in the high speed lane allowing traffic to enter from an on-ramp. A car going at least 20 mph slower than I was going decided that they were going to get onto the freeway and head directly over to my lane. That person is lucky they are going home alive today. I took evasive action as I was totally cut off by this freak, and got into the "slow" lane - or tried to. This person realized their mistake - their utter stupidity in my view in simply getting into a lane without even freaking looking as far as I could tell to see if traffic was already there - and then was going to go back into the slow lane of which I was already halfway in.

I was already braking, this person freaked out and didn't know WHAT to do. The vehicle was now tweaking between lanes, not know what I was doing - though in reality, that person shouldn't have put themself in that position to HAVE to attempt to decide what to do.

I was not smiling at that person as I passed by him. I didn't do any hand gestures, but I made it well known my discontent for this person putting mine and their life at stake.

Ummm, I was talking about Safeway. Easy to get caught up in stories on the road because so much of it happens everyday.

Well, I got some potato salad - on sale - get 4 large packages of bone-in chicken breast - 99 cents per pound/sale - and searching for other stuff on sale.

I always head to the produce department, I am eating salads, have been for quite a while and am not opting out of it. I get to the tomatoes. There are the "on-the-vine" things and there are Roma tomatoes. I wanted the vine thingies because they are larger and I like larger slices of tomatoes - but they didn't look right to me for some reason.

There was a lady standing there going through the Roma tomatoes that educated me all about these vine tomatoes. She picked them up ( the reason I thoroughly wash my produce when I get it home, Lord only knows who and WHAT with that who touched that stuff) and started pointing out the flaws with them. White spots and unripened areas of the tomato. Her deal-breaker, though, was her fact that they have no flavor and the Romas have much better taste to them.

I like Roma tomatoes - but I much prefer the meatier, larger tomatoes. She proclaimed her tomato expertise - didn't doubt her. In fact, I pretty much just listened and showed the signs of registering that I was listening (versus the blank look on a face of someone that is totally tuned-out). I opted for the Roma's just because I had already had my doubts about the "on-the-vine" variety before I had even spoken to her.

I then gave her my little piece of info. There is a farmer's marker in the town of Guadalupe and they sell some pretty good stuff there and it's all locally grown. "Is it a REAL farmer's market? I mean, is that all they sell or are they doing everything else as well?" No ma'am, this is a vegetable and produce store, that's what they do and that's what they've been doing for something like 40 years now. Oh, the glee and perponderance in her face. She's going, I could bet my toenails on it. Okay, that's a bit much. I did advise her to go there in the DAYTIME, not at night. I didn't want to fill her with fear, but ..........

Lol. Oh, and by the way, when I lol - I am actually lol'ing. It ain't some quaint nicety, I'm chuckling or laughing.

I always digress, always. But, it's my blog, so there.

ben