Frazzled

Saturday, May 13, 2023

My anxiety was pushed to the edge, today.

For someone with social anxiety, one of my worst nightmares is being in a crowded area and garnering attention. Today, when I was at the grocery store, I went into the self checkout line, because the less people I have to deal with, the better. I also shop with AirPods in so I don’t have to listen or acknowledge other people. Of course, my luck, the checkout machine messes up. It doesn’t just mess up a little bit. It’s epic. The first time, it was a vegetable weight issue, so the manager lady comes over and essentially just shuts off the weight part and helped me ring things up. I could tell that she was having a day and was flustered, making my anxiety spike. Tomorrow is Mother’s Day and the store is packed. After everything was scanned, she left and I got to pay.

I had a gift card for the store that’s been in my wallet for a while now, and I knew it had a small balance, but I just wanted to use it so I could toss it. When I scan, the machine beeps and says “verify amount”. Which, of course, means that the manager lady needs to come back over. I’m not entirely sure what’s going on, I’ve never worked in a grocery store. She can’t get it to work, so she yells, (yes, yells) to another manager, who is helping someone else. She’s so loud, that all the surrounding customers turn to watch. And I wanted to crawl in a hole and die. She winds up having to go over to the main register, especially pushing over the other guy. He was in the middle of a transaction, so he’s annoyed at her and she’s mumbling under her breath and then she yells at another lady because she was trying to use the machine I was on and the screen was left up so that nobody could use it. Then the lady starts yelling at her and I’m just standing there with my anxiety going through the room and hoping the ground would swallow me up. I just want the transaction to finish as quick as possible. I seriously considered just leaving my cart there and walking out of the store. But that would mean I would have to go to another store and get everything that I just got, so I suffered through. When it was finally done, I very quickly walk to my care and shove my groceries in there seriously contemplating never, ever coming back to that store again.

Next time, I’m using eCart.