So who annoyed who today? For me it was the Lady At the Grocery.

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It's market rush hour and everyone is running around and the cashiers and floor guys are basically tripping over themselves trying to keep everyone moving and not crashing into each other and happy. I get on a line with a basket of pasta and tonic water in front of a short woman with a baseball cap, shoulders full of freckles, sunglasses, and a huge cart of items.

She then proceeds to weigh each and every item AT the cashier, to figure out which one of the several identical packs of peanuts is the cheapest. She then gets into an argument about the kind of cucumber she picked up. There are at least four lines around us moving at scary assembly-line speed with the floor crew packing up empty carts and baskets in a steady lack, clack, clack soundtrack. I take the time to notice the new kinds of chocolate they make in Madagascar (Mint Salt?) until Tiny Lady In Front Me pulls out her purse.

Then she pulls out a fist full of coupons.

I put my basket down. The line behind me now stretches past beer and into Seafood. I help put away a few baskets, bring a few carts to the Point, I used to work in a supermarket so it's like second nature and I get super-twitchy in lines anyway. A flipped switch. Anyway, I get back to the line and it looks like Baseball Cap-Sunglasses Inside Lady is finally going to pay.

Then she makes it a Delivery order, someplace far away, in an expensive zip code. She argues *again* about the fact that she'll have to take her milk and eggs and whatever with her cause delivery could take a while. She sighs and takes her bag of perishables with her. Then she wanders away, not busing her cart, which is half-full from the items she brought up and discarded.

And then, and only then, did I want to strangle her.