The Incredible Hulk

After my fun times last week with the cold weather/ inappropriate amount of clothing/ broken window debacle, I decided I needed to go buy my step-son's some clothes. Of course, it was also the week before Christmas and I had about $.35 left in the account. Joy. However, the boys sharing one sweater over the holiday stretch really wasn't an option, so I decided to take my chances at Goodwill until we recovered a bit from the holiday cheer. Trust me on this one- if you should ever find yourself in need of clothes around the holidays cheaply- try WalMart. Try Target. Try Hobby Lobby and just make some yourself. Avoid Goodwill!

After about an hour and a half of meticulously searching the racks, I felt that I'd found enough warm weather clothes for the boys to make it for a few weeks until I could get them newer clothes. My arms were completely loaded down, but there were no baskets in sight, so I clumsily maneuvered my way to the front of the store where the check out counter was.

I stood, barely able to see above the stack of clothes I had clustered together, for about 5 minutes when the woman in front of me finished, pushed her cart to the side, and began to walk out with her things.

I noticed that she'd left something in the cart, and reached out to grab it. I said, "Excuse me, I think you left this behind," as the woman was walking out. She glared at me in response, and as I dropped the majority of the stack I was holding in an effort to try and grab the (Ceram wrap I think) that she'd left in her cart, the woman that had just checked her out called, "Mam, you didn't pay for that bag." Apparently she'd swiped a thermal food bag as she was walking out the door, hoping to go unnoticed (and probably would have, if not for my good deed). Nice.

I kept my eyes to the floor as I concentrated REALLY hard on picking each and every piece of the clothing I'd dropped and not making any eye contact with the woman I'd just ousted. The two women argued over whether or not she'd walked in with that bag for a few minutes when finally, a man stocking the furniture area came stalked over and hurriedly settled the argument, allowing the woman to leave with the bag.

I cautiously approached the counter, praying that my tires wouldn't be slashed by the time I was done at the check-out, and went to the man that had settled the argument. He was sweaty, ruddy and seemed to be in a hurry but offered to ring me up, so I took him up on his offer.

I set my huge stack of clothes on the counter, and he began ringing them piece by piece. About a quarter of the way through the stack I could see him getting aggravated by the hangers that seemed to cling to one another. Like I said, he was already sweaty and ruddy, and now his temperament seemed to be raising to his obviously heightened his temperature.

In the midst of his hanger fight, the phone near him rang. He answered and rudely responded to the caller, then set the phone down just a bit too hard, and my antennae started twanging…


I backed up a bit, and the employee checking next to him and I made eye contact, and she gave me a slack/sidways jaw, "this is bad," grimace. Apparently, this guy had anger issues, apparently plastic hangers with metal swivels are this guys arch nemesis, apparently he had about as much patience as my 3 year old.

Anyway, I suppose the roller coaster reached the apex, because suddenly he picked up the entire stack of hangers, which of course had tangled in the phone cord, and in Hulk-Smash mode, raised them high, and chunked them on the floor behind him with a small, "Rahhhhh!" exclamation.

The chunking of his customers belongings and the phone was weird enough, but the muted-grunt-yell thing was a little over the top. I stood there stunned. I tried to imagine if this had ever happened before. Pretty sure, I'd never had a teenager working at American Eagle turn into the Hulk and smash hangers around. I'd never experienced an adult version of a toddler fit while they were performing their job duties in my presence. Nope, this was definitely a first for me.

The hangers scattered, some broke, and the phone smashed into several pieces on the floor behind him. He made no apology though his counter-partner picked up the pieces and set the now 4 piece phone back on the counter. That would have been fun to see him answer. At this point, he was only about half way done ringing up my items, so I (lucky me) was forced to stand there and continue to have this LUNATIC check me out. Now my blood pressure was rising!

By the time the guy had finished, I felt as though I had scarlet fever climbing up my abdomen, and I might just throw something at him! How dare he throw my boys hangers on the floor!! How DARE he behave like a child in front of me! But, of course, I chickened out and stayed quiet.

Still angry when I left, I quickly strode out the door, and as I left, the girl with whom I'd exchanged nervous glances called out sweetly, "Bye, thank you for coming to Goodwill!" Yeah, uhuh.

Stay tuned, I soooo have some good ones coming. My husband's ex-wife is coming for an overnighter, that's bound to have a few stories right? That alone is weird enough to make the 1% blog...