Of baby carts and melons

Is there a term for road rage when it refers to grocery carts in the grocery store? Is that aisle rage? Is it cart aggression?

Whatever it is, I have it. Shopping makes me a little mental. What I wouldn't give to have the run of the place after hours when there's no one else but me in the store. It's not that I mind shopping - or people, for that matter - it's just that I get very, very tense in the produce aisles at Price Chopper. There's always someone in my way, someone leaving a cart in the middle of the aisles, someone cutting me off, or someone lurking too closely behind me while I'm picking through the less than appetizing produce (hey, they don't call it Price Chopper for nuthin').

Today it was a woman with melons in her baby carrier. That's right, in her baby carrier. She took one of the free carts with the attached baby seat and used the baby seat for her melons.

Right off the bat she irritated me because she cut me off by the potatoes and then blocked me in by the dairy bins. But then I noticed she didn't have a baby in the carrier, she had produce in it instead.

And why? Because the carts with the baby carriers are free. You don't have to pay a quarter to rent the ones equipped with built-in baby carriers.

I know, I know. Who am I to judge? Maybe she didn't have a quarter (although I've had to go to a cashier and ask for change in the past, and I've also accosted strangers in the parking to offer them two dimes and a nickel in exchange for the quarter they've just removed from their own cart upon its return - it CAN be done). But whatever, it just irritated me.

Because I get irritable in the produce section of Price Chopper. And the meat department too, where people lurk *this* close to you in some odd stalking game of some sort that I've yet to understand. There really IS enough meat for all of us, I SWEAR.

But back to the woman with the melons. I'm not sure why it bothered me. Maybe because if I ever use a cart with a baby seat you can bet your ass it will be to carry a baby, or maybe it was because she could have been inconveniencing someone who had a baby instead of melons, or maybe it was because she was too cheap or lazy to rent a cart. Or maybe I'm just generally irritable.

I don't know. But she bugged me. And I can't let it go.

My Beloved would tell me I have enough things to worry about without getting all stressed out about some woman and her grocery cart habits.

But I can't.

Maybe I just need a good night's sleep. And maybe I need to get to Price Chopper earlier in the week and much, much earlier in the day. Maybe that'll help too.