Wednesday, January 11, 2012

What Really Bugs Me

In general, I'm a pretty laid back person, but like anybody, I have certain things that really bug me. One of these annoyances seems to be happening quite often to me and it's driving me nuts. It happens when I take my kids out grocery shopping or to Target and someone (who I know or don't know) starts chatting with me. The scenario goes something like this:

Person X: "Hey! I haven't seen you in forever! How are you?"
Me: "Really great! Just busy trying to get shopping done with the kids. You?"

At this point I expect a "Yeah we are great too, see you later" response, but that's not always what happens. Sometimes what happens is Person X decides to tell me their whole life story for the past ten years which involves two divorces, a pet dying and an unexpected pregnancy. Whenever this happens, Person X seems to be COMPLETELY oblivious to my children, who are in fact, sick of waiting in a basket while mommy talks and going crazy. It's as if they think I don't have children with me and I can just talk all day. It happens with strangers and acquaintances alike.

After about three minutes of chit-chat my kids are in full blown impatient mode, or worse yet, self entertainment mode. Miss Belle is usually trying to actually join the conversation and Peanut is usually trying to push Miss Belle out of the cart in some way. All the while, I am not able to really listen to what the person is saying but am instead thinking, "Can you hear them? They are yelling and poking me. My son just fed my daughter a cockroach off the floor. My daughter just did that flip thing she does to get from one part of the cart to the other. She almost cracked her head open. Do you not see this? How is this conversation enjoyable to you?"

Don't get me wrong. I enjoy friendly conversation and my kids are actually pretty well behaved in stores (as long as they are not left in one place for too long), but trying to have a drawn out adult conversations for an extended period of time in the grocery store just isn't going to happen at this point.

2 comments:

  1. So refreshing! I thought I was the only one who hated this (worse though, I think, is this is happening to someone else in the middle of an isle while you have to pass; you trip over a child, bump into the shopping cart, and get yelled at for not looking out)!

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  2. I avoid most people I know at the store. Whether the kids are with me or not. :)

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