Why Do They Do The Things They Do?

A few days ago, I went to Safeway for dinner as I did not bring any with me to work.  Man's gotta eat.  Even a dieting man.

The Safeway near my work seems to be a vortex.  Now, there are several definitions of a vortex, but dictionary.com has two I would like to share:

5.	something regarded as drawing into its powerful current everything that surrounds it: the vortex of war.

6.	(in Cartesian philosophy) a rapid rotatory movement of cosmic matter about a center, regarded as accounting for the origin or phenomena of bodies or systems of bodies in space.

In the case of this Safeway, it is a vortex of Odd.  My first instinct is to apply it to the word Stupidity, but that would just be rude to my fellow shoppers.  The better word is Odd.

So there I was, in line with my goods, in the process of mulling over which rag mag I was not intending to buy, when a lady got in line behind me.  She had a total of 3 items, although I cannot recall exactly what the said items were.  This being a 15 Items Or Less line, this was in no way unusual.  What was unusual, in my eyes and in the eyes of anyone with eyes to view the unusual, was that she had a cart.  A shopping cart.  A whole shopping cart.  For 3 items.

"Wait!" you shout accusingly, glaring at me with lover's eyes, "Maybe those items were heavy!  Charcoal is heavy!  Maybe she didn't want to carry the charcoal!  For God's sake man, the charcoal!!!!"

The simple reply is to point out that although I do not remember the specific items being purchased, I do recall that each one was small and could be carried by hand.  At the most, a small shopping basket.  The convoluted reply would involve cursing, berating, and an eventual trip to the nut house for all the charcoal talk.  So, I go with the simple.

She was pushing around a cart with 3 items.  This woman was not handicapped.  She was not limping, wheezing, gasping, or having a hard time pushing the cart.  It would have made perfect sense to pick up a small green Safeway basket and carry her items around.  It would have made even more sense to just carry them by hand, because they were easily small enough and light enough to do just that.  It did not make any sense to push around a large cart with three tiny pieces of grocery.

This is one example of the vortex at work.  It pulls the Odd like moths to a moth orgy.  Like inbreds to their moms.  Other examples I have spoke of before.  There was the guy who bought 15 yogurts and nothing else.  That was Odd.  The other day, they were letting the down-syndrome having youth learn stuff on the register while customers were starting to back up.  That was Odd.  Hey, the guy is free to learn stuff, but pick your battles.  There was the old lady a long time ago that freaked out when her groceries began to move along the black moving along thing we call put our stuff onto every time we check out of any grocery store.  Seriously.  She yelled at the cashier, blaming him for it.  Amazing.

Now that I have my little notebook, which you'll of course recall me mentioning in a previous post, namely this one, I'm looking forward to my next visit.  I might just forget to bring my dinner on Sunday.

See?  It draws me in, too.