Excuse Me?

Lew and I had a lovely day.  Some friends from church had a gathering at their house.  They live on a lake, so Lew got a chance to go swimming.  I stayed nice and dry.  :)

On our way home we stopped at Cabela's to get a few things -- four items, to be exact.

When we went to check out, we discovered that only two lines were currently open.  They were both long, so we picked the line that had customers with very few items in their hands -- no carts at all.

A couple of teenagers were in front of us.  In front of them was a woman with an ice cream item.

We waited in line for several minutes.

And we waited some more.

Then the woman with the ice cream yells back to a kid to "bring the carts up here... I don't want to wait in line again!"  And two additional people -- a kid and probably a grandmother -- come up with two full shopping carts.

Well....

Hmmm....

My blood began to boil.  Yes, it did.

There were a few more customers in line in back of us by this point.  They didn't look happy.  The teenagers in front of us were wide-eyed.  I overheard them whispering about a reservation that they had.

Then the lady began to wave up a few more people that were apparently with her.

I don't remember exactly how it happened, but I opened my big mouth.  Yes, I did.

I caught the eye of the ice-cream-lady-who-now-had-two-full-carts and told her that we only had four small items.  She asked, "Oh, do you want to go in front of me?"  Was there an edge to that?  I think so.

"Well, yes," I responded.  "We got in this line because no one had a lot of items.  These kids in front of us only have a couple things...."

"I've been waiting a long time, too," she responded.

I calmly pointed out that she had been waiting with only an ice cream.  And now she had added two completely full carts to the mix.

Busted.

She paid for the ice cream, because the little girl (who had not been waiting in line with her, by the way) had to eat it before it melted.

Then she had the carts removed to the back of the line.  When we left the store -- within the next five minutes(!) -- we noticed that she was no longer in line at all.  She was standing with her carts and her entourage of people a little further back from any of the checkout lines.  (Perhaps they were discussing their next line-jumping ploy....)

As for the teenagers in front of us?  They were very appreciative that I had spoken up.  As they were checking out, the girl told me that she didn't dare to say anything... although her mom would have done what I did!

My blood temperature is almost back to normal.