Buggy Wars

I cannot run for public office—ever. There’s a potential YouTube video. It won’t be flattering.

Somewhere in the bowels of our local box store lurks a security video where I can be seen devolving into the circling, snarling matriarch of a hyena pack.

Because . . .while trying to do the right thing and return my buggy to the buggy corral, I may or may not have rolled that buggy in front of a little old lady who resembled a wizened Mother Goose.

 

Note: Buggy is southern for shopping cart. Mother Goose is southern for an elderly woman pushing a mean buggy.

Let the record show that Mother Goose was completely out of sync, going in the down, and up the out. She’s lucky she wasn’t buggy crushed. Forced to walk three—possibly four—steps out of her way, she blamed me.

 “People are so rude these days. You pulled right out in front of me,” she said.

For a disorienting minute, I thought I might have been rolling down the interstate in my convertible buggy.

It’s important to note that ninety-nine percent of the time in these confrontational shopping buggy-parking situations, I generally say something like, “Sorry. You are so right; rude isn’t a big enough four-letter word for what I am.” Then I grovel.

This time, for reasons only my hormone soaked reptilian brain might fathom, I did not grovel.  I bristled.

Seizing on the driving/parking metaphor, I hiked up my arthritic right hip, slapped the back (buttocks) portion, and while hopping about on one foot, chanted, “Next time signal! Put your blinker on, put your blinker on, put . . .”

Then it got really weird.

Mother Goose hiked up her more arthritic hip, slapped her buttocks region, and shuffle-shuffle-hopping, shot back, “YOU! Put your blinker on, put your blinker

on . . .”

Circling each other while slapping, chanting and shuffle hopping, we were like two woozy dogs with six legs between us. Hackles were visible and raised. My opponent had age and experience on her side, however, and eventually, I retreated to the neutral territory of the restroom, where I splashed water on my face and checked for multiple personalities. It’s possible that the bad me frightened a security guard and confused some cashiers.

Later, I realized that a security camera had recorded the entire incident. That out there in cyber-verse-land exists a video of me slapping my butt and insulting a nine hundred-year old, Mother Goose look alike.

That’s why I can never run for public office. There’s a video. Just my luck, it’s not a sex video; those things never seem to be a problem for anyone.