Roger Rabbits with Jim Bunny

This could easily have turned to custard. And a conviction. I was half expecting the constabulary’s sleaze patrol to come knocking, demanding I accompany them to the station to answer some rather embarrassing, sensitive personal questions.

 “Did you, without lawful purpose, and malice aforethought, go fossicking through women’s stuff in a changing room at a local mall Sunday afternoon?”

Questions I probably wouldn’t have adequate answers for. “Well officer, no I didn’t. But then again, yes I did…”Do I ‘plead the fifth’? Do I scratch through the statutes to see if “creepy and pervy” is an indictable offence. What’s the threshold for permanent name suppression?

And all this over the purchase of a pair of shorts, cubicle queues, shopping etiquette and dollops of self-entitlement.

Picture this. I’m next in the queue, so as soon as a young woman exits a change room, or cubicle, I dive in. And I dive headlong into trouble. There’s stuff, women’s stuff, strewn around, hanging from the hooks, dumped on the seat. It looked like someone had moved in. And they had.

Why do they need to take some much stuff into a change room? Why can’t they be more selective at the racks? And why can’t they put their rejects back on hangers? A little consideration goes a long way. And there are good reasons a lot of stores put a two-items-per-customer limit on change rooms.

Anyhow, after I decide this buff figure of manhood makes the new “plum” shorts look pretty smart, I exit the change room for the checkout and run directly into dark clouds – a Sunday afternoon in-store maelstrom.

Miffed 

‘Young woman’ is standing there askance. Boy, is she miffed – hands planted on hips and glaring. “That’s my stuff in there,” she snaps – meaning, I presume, that it was her cubicle and she hadn’t finished with it. I did wonder. Now she’s making me feel creepy, a bit pervy. Had I invaded her space, trampled her self-esteem, her self-entitlement? Was I out of order? Should I expect the store detective, or worse still, one with handcuffs and powers of arrest? What a mess? What would my mother think?

Missy, it seems, had left the cubicle only to gather even more try-ons, heaven forbid. Did she have a mortgage on the cubicle? Did she really expect the queue to stand idly by and wait for her to finish hoarding, and trying on, and hoarding and trying on? Well, yes, obviously she did. And she was quite happy to make a scene about it. “Quite right,” said one onlooker. “Common sense and consideration for others would go a long way.”

But it was Missy’s indignation and haughtiness that made me feel the guilty party. And because I didn’t want to engage in a public slanging match, I slunk out of the store feeling shamed. She had won.

My experience triggered other stories of shopping protocols being violated by people who just don’t care; who don’t mind upsetting as long as they get their way.

Shopping Protocol 2 

A colleague is still smarting from her queue experience at Cinnabon – the new Auckland store offering indulgent, thigh-slapping sweet treats. They unashamedly pitch their “world-famous cinnamon roll made with a combination of warm dough, ‘legendary’ Makara cinnamon and signature cream cheese”. I put on pounds and started sprouting pimples just breathing the air as I walked past.

Colleague had just made it to the front of the queue when Mrs Auckland Bulldozer forces her way in front, places her order and then turns, feigns an apology for busting the queue, forces a syrupy smile, grabs the order and exits. Shameless!

“I so really wanted to tell her what I thought. But then those people rely on the decency of others not to make a scene. They offend with impunity.”

By the way, the cinnamon roll was “deeleeshush”. That restored the equilibrium, took the sting out of the rudeness.

Shopping Protocol 3 

This is the one that really rankles. You are slowly and tolerantly working your way up the supermarket queue to the checkout operator when Mrs I-Don’t-Give-A-Damn in front of you suddenly throws her arms in the air and disappears to the farthest reaches of the store to get that overlooked purchase. There’s always that very plastic “this happens to everyone” smile to the rest of the queue and another round of disingenuous apologies when they return. Two, three, four, five minutes of our collective lives are lost because of their rudeness. I always feel sorry for the poor child who’re often left holding the fort at the checkout for mum. “Don’t do this to me Mum – it’s embarrassing.”

Shopping Protocol 4 

A shopper enters the supermarket with a dog in the trolley. Not an assistance dog, just another mutt. Then they too get all sniffy when other shoppers suggest that might not be a hygienic thing to do, that people might not like their food trolley doubling as a kennel. Why would someone think that’s alright?