Grumpy Old Men

I went to my local banking establishment to deposit a check before work today. Normally you’re in and out of there pretty quick. The staff are ALWAYS super friendly and I have never had an issue. Today there was around 7 or 8 people in the line. No worries. I’m patient. I can wait no problem. The elderly man three spots ahead could not. Just as I get into line he starts yelling at a financial clerk.

“There are only two tellars and eight of us! You need to get your staff off their asses and off break. This is stupid. I don’t have all day. Life is too short to be spent waiting here. You need to get this line moving. BLAH BLAH BLAH”

I was stunned. This poor lady was doing her job and get’s reemed out by this crotchety old prune.

She handles it beautifully and says sorry for the delay but they are understaffed. I am not normally one to pipe up but I wasn’t going to tolerate this so as kindly as I could I said, “Hey, be patient, we are all waiting here just like you.” and said sorry to the financial clerk. She gave me a smile followed up with an eye roll. Hah.

A few others said something to him but this made the man madder. He started spewing some ridiculous hate and kept saying he didn’t have time for all this bullshit. Woah. The young man who was waiting in front of me and I had a laugh and we start joking together about it. An older gentleman standing in front of Mr Crankypants breaks out the sarcasm and makes the whole line giggle under their breath.

“Sir! Obviously your time is worth WAY more than ours. How about you go in front of me so you can get down to business sooner.”

Mr Crankypants is a dick about it but takes the man’s spot in line and starts saying the man is stupid when asked why he was in such a rush.

“I don’t answer to stupid people. This is ridiculous. Get those tellers out here doing their jobs. I bet they are all out of break doing jack. I don’t want to talk to you, I don’t deal with stupid.”

Then a teller comes rushing back (from break?) and opens up a till. The old prune mutters something loudly “About time they do their job.” Two more people file through before Mr. Crankypants get’s to a teller and says smiles happily and states that there is online banking he can sign up for so he will never have to wait in line again. Lol

What is it with certain cranky old people thinking that they shouldn’t have to ever wait in lines? I’ve been experiencing it more and more lately, what’s the deal?

I few months ago I went to the clinic forty minutes before it opened so I could get in line and avoid the hour(s) long wait. I was second in line, sitting against the brick wall with my crossword while other people slowly showed up and waited in line with me. The whole while a man sat in his car with his newspaper while his wife knitted in the passenger seat.

I exchange small talk with the older lady next to me as she sees me flying through my crossword. (Lucky me it was an easy one so I must have looked badass whipping through it haha) A woman two spots behind her has a very young girl with a terrible cough and red blotches all over her skin. We all chat for a bit while we wait for 7am to roll around. A clinic secretary pulls up into staff parking to unlock the door and let us in. Old man in the car sees her comes running up and budges in line in front of now fifteen people waiting. The man beside me confronts the man and I thought they were going to punch each others lights out. Line-man says that there are fifteen people waiting here out in the cold to sign up for the clinic and he just can’t budge in. Car man thinks that if he waits in the car he is entitled to be first in line. Copy and paste nearly the exact same dialog as the bank comments and insert that here. The grumpy man refuses to speak further to the guy who confronted him despite all the nasty looks from the people in line.

The man in front of me and the others around me allow the woman and her young girl to go ahead, the man saying loudly, “Common decency.” I think that pissed off the line jumper.

Sure, had the man come out and said he couldn’t safely wait in the cold I’m sure we wouldn’t have minded but after he shows up when fifteen people braved the Canadian morning and assumes that he’s getting in first really pisses me off. We are all sick. We all have things that are making us go to the clinic. If you are in that much of a rush wait in line or go to emergency. Sheesh people. Where’s you common sense?

In other not so entertaining news I still have heart palpitations and have been feeling pretty yucky. Heart monitor next week though and a follow up appointment with my doctor tomorrow so hopefully we can get this thing figured out!