eugene stickland  

Mr. Grumpypants in happier times.

Well, well, well. Would you look at that! Just when you thought our streets were safe, who should come skulking around here again but Mr. Grumpypants with another first world atrocity to share with us all. Take it away, Your Grumpiness . . .

Thank you, Eugenius.

Meine Dame und Herren. Mesdames et Messieurs. Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you for taking the time to read my guest column on the Eugenius blog here.  Though I don’t mind telling you that I am still awaiting payment from the first post I wrote which was months ago. Does the administration of this blog think I live on air or something? What the hell’s wrong with people, Krisake . . .

On any account, there I was in Safeway. Minding my own business as usual. I was in the eggs and dairy aisle, lovingly fondling the various tubs of yoghurt. A woman of indeterminate age and, I might add, rare beauty, was beside me, so to speak, likewise engaged.

I was caressing a big firm tub of OLYMPIC CREAMA while she was going back and forth from tub to tub of inferior yoghurts, clearly befuddled and unable to make a final decision.  She seemed particularly interested in a blue tub of Greek stuff that I had tried myself and found to be wretched. And so what could I do, what choice did I have, I intervened.

“My lady,” I crooned, in dulcet tones, “Do yourself a favour. Forget that stuff, I’ve tried it, it’s no good. Get yourself a tub of the OLYMPIC CREAMA. It’s simply the best. It will change your entire notion of what yoghurt really is.”

“Is it really that good?” she asked?

“It is, it is, it just makes everything else taste like puppy doo doo.”

“Well,” she said, “That’s good enough for me. Thank you.” And she took a tub of CREAMA and put it in her cart. Decisively, if I do say so myself. She gave me a meaningful look, and then shopped on, as did I: she to eggs, and me to cheese.

End of story, you would think. But no. Oh no. Oh no no no. A few minutes later, as I was looking to take my place at one of the checkouts, there she was, hauling a tub of  the blue shit I had warned her about onto the conveyor belt. She had obviously slunk back to the yoghurt section when I was out of sight and put back her tub of CREAMA and taken a tub of this inferior blue goo instead.

WTF?!

What can you even say to this type of underhanded skuzzy behaviour? We had a pact, an agreement. We had had a moment. For no personal profit or gain of any kind, other than the satisfaction of helping a fellow human being, I had GONE OUT OF MY WAY  to help this thankless hussy and what does she do???  She sneaks back around and makes the old switcheroo.

A low point, a black day,  in the history of cooperative shopping, to say the least.

In my mind, I made my way through the lineup behind here and I picked up that blue tub of rancid yoghurt and held it up to her face and screamed: “AH ha! Caught you! You heartless thankless JEZEBEL! You low and vile worse than crawling THING! How could you?!?! How could you do this to US???????”

And then triumphantly made my way to the fruits and vegetables aisle to compose myself. In my mind, at least, that’s what I did.

Ahh, but dear reader, perhaps in another place, at another time, I would have done just that, and then some. But sadly – and herein lies the seat of my grumpiness – I am a Canadian man, bred and trained by my parents to be polite and obsequious at all costs, especially in the presence of women of indeterminate age, and so what did I do?

I averted my eyes, dear reader, pretending I hadn’t noticed this atrocity, and meekly took my place in another line up.

So sad, when I think of what might have been. So sad, so sad.

No wonder they call me Mr. Grumpypants.

I live it my friend Gladys and her Pips to convey the depths of my despair . . .

Thanks for reading.