Hey guys, I just wanted to share this story somewhere.
As I was going to the self checkout at the grocery store today, the first two kiosks on the left side were occupied and the path to get to the last one was blocked by someone’s large cart because there’s a temporary median of mother’s day flowers between the sides. No problem, on the right side there’s just one guy who’s currently getting ready to pay so I figured I would squeeze between him and the flowers.
I said “excuse me” and he didn’t acknowledge me so I said it again, I was in a sensitive head space so I know for a fact it wasn’t aggressive. If anything I probably said it too softly both times but it was very clear he knew I was there and he was deliberately ignoring me. So I slowly started to go between him and the flowers where there should’ve been enough room, and as I was doing so he moved back and put himself in the way of my cart, making contact.
At that point I said in a neutral tone “Can I please get over to that checkout register” and he starts saying something about how I should use the other side. I pointed and said there was no room and I was just trying to get to the kiosk that was unoccupied, and he physically pushed me. I’m not sure if he meant to just aggressively push my cart and accidentally got my wrist/arm area and flung my arm back, but this dude was easily 6’3″ and a big dude, I’m a 5’4″ woman.
As soon as he pushed me he turned around to his machine muttering something under his breath like “see what I mean??” to no one (which immediately created the space I needed and was planning to use before), and I literally just stopped in disbelief because I wasn’t even being rude and I would have quickly adjusted had I been in his shoes. It was clearly the easiest and most reasonable path to take instead of having to ask 3 different people if I could get by.
I hate that the interaction made me cry once I got to my car, but what made me cry more than anything is that nobody said a word. I even looked at the woman who’s cart was completely blocking the way on the other side to see if she saw and we made eye contact, and she said nothing and had no expression on her face.
Please be careful out there. I’ve experienced mad strangers before and haven’t always approached situations perfectly, but I still can’t believe that happened in front of God and everyone with such an obvious size/strength difference. It makes me wonder if it would’ve gone further if anyone would have saved me, I’m a pretty spunky chick but if he had decided he would have really wanted to hurt me he very easily could have.