Christine the Curmudgeon

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Here’s the latest entry in Christine the Curmudgeon’s Hall of Shame Gallery.  The local Stop & Shop parking lot seems to be great fodder for such pics.  Once again, we have a series of lazy jerks who were too lazy to take their carts to the nearby cart corral; rather, they preferred to leave them in handicapped parking spaces.

And YES, those striped areas next to the handicapped spaces ARE part of the spaces; they are there in case someone in a wheelchair needs to get in and out of a van.  The ramps in these specially-equipped vans require the extra space.  So no, jerks, it is NOT there for you to leave carts in.

It was busy and they were having a great sale at the store. But it was also a beautiful day; not raining, not too hot.  So it should not have been a problem for these able-bodied people to not leave their carts in the handicapped spaces.

Lazy jerks!

Christine the Curmudgeon sees him all the time.  Not just in the supermarket, but everywhere else, too.  Click HERE to see other scenarios featuring Annoying Cell Phone Guy.

This site is courtesy of Virgin Mobile, who happens to be the Official Cell Phone Carrier of the Curmudgeon Household.  As you can see, the videos are exaggerated.  But the way some of these people act, they’d may as well be talking that loud on a ginormous phone, as they do a lot to call attention to themselves.

One video they still need to make is Annoying Cell Phone Guy in Hospital.  Nothing is more annoying than being a patient in a hospital, trying to get some rest, only to have Annoying Cell Phone Guy yapping so loud, that his voice breaks all of the spirometers and other medical equipment.

On the site, you can also print up cards to hand to offending parties.  PleaseShutUp.com is a great website that warms my little curmudgeonly heart!

We went to a PawSox game the other day, and they were giving away those eco-tote reusable grocery bags.  They were green and had both a PawSox logo, and a Cox cable company logo (Cox was sponsoring the giveaway).

So Christine the Curmudgeon and The Mister got there early enough, and each got one.  We have a bunch of other bags like this that we got as free giveaways, so we decided to just keep these in the car with the other ones, to use when we go shopping.  We do recycle plastic grocery bags (we use them to dispose of used cat little), but we have so many saved up, we won’t need any more for years.

What shocked us was that when the game was over, many people were leaving them behind!  Some people were even putting them in the garbage!  Why?  If they didn’t want one, they didn’t have to take it.

We didn’t want to pick any out of the garbage, because the garbage can at the end of a game is too gross, but we did pick a few up off the ground and took them with us.  Okay, maybe an eco-tote is not the most exciting ball game giveaway, not like a cap or a jersey or a bobble-head, it’s about as interesting to some people as testosterone cream. I get that. But it’s still a useful item, if you had to buy them at your local grocery stores, they cost a few bucks apiece!

Anyhoo, Mr. Curmudgeon went to the grocery store today, to Shaw’s, on his way home from work.  He brought a couple of these tote bags in with him, yet when he indicated to the cashier that he wanted his stuff to go directly into the tote bags, she ignored him and put it into plastic bags anyway.  Methinks it’s time for another email to Shaw’s, suggesting that they  train their employees on the use of these eco-totes.  Hell, they SELL them there, they are supposed to be trying to encourage people to use them!

Idiots!

So last night, the Mister told Christine the Curmudgeon of his most annoying experience at Shaw’s supermarket.

I had asked him to stop at the store on his way home from work, for exactly TWO items – orange juice and Dijon mustard.  He should have been able to go through the express lane, in and out, quickly.  Right?

Wrong.  Now they have something on the receipts where you can call or go online to take a survey and be entered into some dumb contest.  It was one thing for the cashier to point this out to him, but another for her to REFUSE TO SHUT UP ABOUT IT.  He wanted her to just GIVE HIM THE DAMNED BAG AND RECEIPT ALREADY, so he could get home.

Sheesh…it’s a stupid SURVEY, and we don’t even know what the contest prizes are, anyway.  A wardrobe of urban clothing? Red Sox tickets?  A ZONK prize from Let’s Make A Deal?  Who knows, and who cares?  By entering any contest, you no doubt agree to let people call you and annoy you, trying to sell you some dumb crap.  Not worth it.

I sent a complaint letter through Shaw’s website to complain about the cashier who would not shut up.  I told them if this was going to be common practice, we’d be shopping elsewhere.  Grocery shopping is stressful enough as it is, once we’re ready to check out, we just want to be rung up, pay and go!

It’s been a while since there have been any new pictures posted to Christine the Curmudgeon’s Hall of Shame Gallery.  Well, here’s one now.  It should be pretty much self-explanatory as to why it belongs in the Hall of Shame Gallery.

How much lazier can anyone be?  I didn’t see who left that cart there like that, but I bet it was someone who could seriously use the exercise, and maybe even the best diet supplement. And because of this jerk’s lazitude, not one, but TWO parking spaces at the very busy Stop & Shop were blocked.

Today I became the mayor of this particular Stop & Shop on foursquare.  My first official duty as mayor was to move that cart to the corral where it belonged, right after taking this picture.

It also irks me when I see people getting out of their cars, walking right past empty carts that are parked like this, and then take a cart from inside the store.  You’re walking right past it, anyway, how hard is it to take one of these carts into the store and use it?  That’s what I do, when I see them!  In this case, I saw this when I was coming out of the store, after I’d put my own cart into the corral.

Even worse is anyone who leaves a cart in a handicapped space.  You can see a serious example of this HERE.