Getting back to the story that I was beginning, I went to buy groceries with my mother a few weeks ago. I have found a way in which I can shop without coming unglued by the fact that other's have touched the products before I. If I have witnessed someone touching something I need to buy, I will use a bag as a glove to hold it long enough to put into the basket. This has taken some of my panic and anxiety out of shopping. I still feel like taking someone down if they touch me and I realize that is something I have to work out. To be in a fight with someone in my mind and the other person has no idea is not only a bit weird, even for my standards, but not conducive to my mental growth. So, I have perfected the way I can go to a store to get items I need without wasting any time or energy on things I don't need or want.
You may be asking yourself, "Where is she going with this?" I feel the need to set up the baseline of the story so you can see how frustrating my day can be and how hard it is for me to explain myself. At the time I have finished placing the items in the basket in a specific order, I now have to find a cashier that I think will be my friend for the amount of time it takes to get things placed in bags and paid for. When I am out in public, no matter how insignificant or small the place is, I always pick out the good guys and my enemy. That is with any store. It's a mental list that means nothing to anyone else, it's my inner self that does this automatically. The majority of times I am in a mental fight with the person in line who runs to get something else and makes everyone behind wait for her to get back with the stupid product.
To continue the story, I am in line with what I considered to be a very unremarkable. The line wasn't as long as most, there were no screaming dirty smell kids in the line, so I wasn't in a fight with the mother. When it is time for me to start placing items upon the conveyor I methodically do so in a way that makes all the sense in the world. I place same items together. I realize my "same" and other's "same" is different, and I never think it is that important. What's important to me is that now I have my selected items placed exactly how I need them to be bagged, I watch with horror my enemy. The enemy showed itself and the mental fight was on. She was scanning each item too fast, not looking at what she was picking up, putting the items in a bag that I could never pick up because it was all wrong. She was trying my patience and looking at her did not seem to get her attention that she is getting a mental ass whooping.
My heart is beating so fast I want to choke someone. How can someone be so inconsiderate that they do not take in consideration the amount of time and energy it takes to have a basket of groceries grouped perfectly and then placed on a conveyor in an order that would be easy for any cashier to work with? The chaos is so much that I really am beginning to dislike this woman with each beep. I refuse to pick up the bags to place in my empty basket, so she stops scanning and starts loading the bags herself. I am still in shock at what I am witnessing and we are not even halfway through. I need her to slow down. Watch the insanity you are making. I can't yell loud enough in my head for her to hear me and how she is the luckiest woman on earth right now because I am on medication that keeps me from being physically and verbally violent. She is oblivious of the fact that she is ruining my day with each scan and beep. I watch her taking things out of bags I purposefully put them in because someone had touched it before and now there were two different hands on my purchased item. I want to kick someone, a baby or something and I feel my eyes well up with tears.
I am smart enough to know it isn't right, the way I do things, or the way I am. I get that, I am not in denial that the quirky things that are normal to me make others stare and wonder what is wrong with that woman. Just ask me, that's all I need. Let me explain please so that I don't hate you and you not even know it. I have fights in my head, and the victim is unaware.
