ACWGF and I were shopping for Christmas gifts at a craft store yesterday, and it seemed the store was bent on making our visit as irritating as possible.
First, the cart that we got from the cart corral had not one, but two bad wheels. With every revolution of the wheels, a horrible groan would emanate from one, while a pained squeak would stab out from the other. This created the cacophonous* noise of two elephant seals, who had all the tonal pitch and register of an American Idol tryout, getting jiggy with it.
I was content to push down on the back of the cart, thus amplifying the noise to the far corners of the store. ACWGF insisted I go back and switch it for another cart.
We later learned that we should have hung on to that auditory torture device, because what was being pumped from the speakers above was even worse. No, it wasn't Michael Bolton or Kenny G. It was children. Singing. Christmas songs. Off key. Loudly.
Imagine the worst elementary school Christmas Pageant you've ever been to. It may be one that you were in. Now, make sure all the children are going through puberty, and tell them to sing as loudly as possible.
I'm not sure which upper level corporate decision maker thought this would be good music to play, because as soon as it came on, ACWGF and I wished we were out of there. I almost dropped everything I was holding and bolted for the door. You could see it all around. People would stare up at the ceiling, as if that would cease the horrible racket falling on their ears from above like so many pieces of off key shrapnel. Then they would get a panicked look on their face, shove their cart toward the end of the aisle to prevent the egress of other shoppers, and run, arms over heads, out into the sweet silence of the night. More than once I saw parents push their own children into the path of oncoming shoppers in the attempt to aid their own escape.
We stayed long enough only to hear 2 songs, and believe me, it was 2 songs too many. As we were on our way out, we heard the familiar sound of the squeaky cart that we had at the beginning of our shopping venture. Pushing that cart was one of the strongest women I have ever seen. She wasn't very tall, but she had 3 kids, 2 out of the cart, 1 in, who were making as much noise as the cart, with all the angelic sound of the piped in death music from above.
It was the look she had on her face that told me she was strong. She didn't have the haggard, tired look that my brothers and I gave our mother. She didn't have the fake face that suggested she couldn't hear her screaming child. She looked like she was completely accustomed to the noise. She had the face of someone who might say, "Don't all kids make this much noise?" She shopped with all the simplicity and ease as someone who had only themselves with which to shop, and she did it with some of the worst circumstances I've ever seen.
*Some of my readers *cough* Kmart *cough* have complained that not only am I too verbose, but the content of my posting is often tautological and superfluous. I guess that may be what comes from studying the language for 4.5 years. As a service to my readers, I'll create links to the more hippopotomonstrosequipedalian words.**
**No, I didn't look up any of these words first. I already knew them.