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This past Sunday I was at the local Kroger gas station in the middle of the after-church rush to the grocery store (not too enticing, I understand). I casually entered the normal routine I have when I'm refilling. I park my dust-covered Kia in front of pump eight, cut the engine, get out, and head to the teller's box. Before I get there, though, a young blonde woman in a floral skirt grabs an energy drink from the cooler to the right of the teller box, and slides right in front of me. However, I didn't mind because I had nowhere to be and I wasn't in any kind of hurry. This woman, being impatient, taps on the glass of the teller box to alert the cashier to her presence. Once the lanky fellow at the register finally paid some attention to her, she slid the attendant her money, and waited for her receipt. While waiting for this receipt, however, her head was completely buried in her phone, scrolling through the endless sea that is Facebook. Oh how the tables turned on this young woman, for the humble servant before her had reciprocate the glass-tapping to alert her to the completed transaction. Her head snapped up from her phone, and her face contorted into the same reaction of a baby sucking on a freshly cut lemon. Anyway, the young woman in front of me collected her receipt and proceeded to her car to pump it full. The cashier is all smiles as I tell him "hello" and ask him how his day is going (normal small talk for a Sunday afternoon). We entertain one another in the time that it takes for my transaction to be completed, and I collect my change and begin walking back to my car. Within this car are my restless parents, hoping I would get back on the road to home here soon. I walk up to the passenger's window and hand my father the change before walking around the front of the Kia to pull the lever on the left side of the driver's seat that opens the gas tank. I pull the lever, and walk back towards the gas tank. I open the contraption and stick the gas pump inside to begin filling my car. In this time, I decided that I would clean off my dusty windows, and observe my surroundings. The black Cadillac behind me just pulled up as the man in the white truck in front of me began to pump his gas. The young woman in the floral skirt was still here for some reason, despite the fact that her tank was full by the time I got the squeegee to wipe my windows down, but she was still standing there with her head in her phone and her driver's side door open blocking traffic. I glanced at the little red car behind her and the elderly women within it as the clicking of the gas pump reminded me to take it out of the gas tank and move on for the next person. I finished wiping off the front window before I replaced the gas pump and got into the car. At this point you're probably wondering, "Well, why in the world is this woman babbling on about her time at the gas station." Well, dear reader this is where it gets a little interesting... that, and I mainly needed a place to vent about this endeavor because of the fact that I'm still a little heated over the following events.
I return to my driver's seat, and turn to my father as I assess the situation. There is a car in front of me, a car immediately behind me, and, you guessed it, floral skirted woman is STILL standing there with her head in her phone, her driver's side door open, and her back faced towards the traffic that she was blocking. Two things had to happen for me to leave this gas station.
1.) The back Cadillac right behind me was going to have to back up so I could steer clear of hitting the truck bed that was in front of me.
That portion of the plan went smoothly, the driver of the Cadillac had backed up for me before I even turned on my engine, fantastic!
2.) This young woman in the floral skirt had to pay attention to something other than her likes for two minutes, and close her door so I could get out of this sardine can of a gas station.
This portion of the plan, however, is where things get a little out of hand.
The floral skirted woman was not paying any attention to her surroundings whatsoever. I'm dead serious when I say that the gas station could have blown up and she wouldn't have noticed. I waited a few moments to see if she would turn around, to at least check her gas that has been finished for the past five minutes now, but she didn't. I did the only thing that I could think of to snap her out of her trance. I honked at her. She jumped and looked at me with disgust, and realized that her gas was finished. Let me tell you something, these next few moments filled me with the utmost rage.
This woman began to go finish pumping her gas.... Without. Closing. Her. Door. The one thing that needed to be done for me, and the people behind me that were finished pumping their gas at this time as well, to exit the gas station. She didn't do it. Well, dear friends, I had to make a difficult personal decision to not barrel through and sacrifice my car to prove a point. It really took everything I had to not hit the gas instead of the horn again. My father, however, could see what my brain was cooking up, and honked at this ignorant woman a second time. Now this time, she was really upset, she was upset that I interrupted her social media scrolls, and she was upset that I wasn't on her time schedule, but my own. Both my father and I began to yell at her to "close the damn door," and she slowly walked up to the door, grabbed the corner, slammed it shut, walked back to us, and made an "after you" motion with her hand as her face looked like a twisted-up orangutan, and her lips mouthed the words "After you, Princess."
I. Cannot. Believe.
This woman, that has treated everyone around her like they're lesser, has it in her head that, out of the two of us, I'm the entitled one here. Sorry honey, that's you. Ms. Tap on the window, head in her phone, taking eight thousand years to pump gas in your ten gallon tank, door slamming rude lady. Up until that point, I had never thought about damaging my car for the sake of a point, but I almost did it that day. I almost did it...
Bee
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