Excuse You!

I rushed through the closing doors of the grocery store, grabbing a basket without stopping. The season finale of Single’s Island was going to be on in forty minutes, and I needed to grab my snacks quickly before I missed a chance to watch it live. If I missed even just a few minutes of it, I wouldn’t be able to live tweet about it, and I would come across spoilers before I had a chance to stream it.

As I made my way to the snack aisle, I accidentally bumped into a woman’s arm. The bump felt light and barely had enough impact to move her body. Still, she made it a point to yell, “Ouch!” I kept speed-walking until I heard her say, “excuse you!”

I stopped and turned around. She was holding her arm tightly and frowning. I sighed, not wanting to waste time dealing with a Karen exaggerating as though I shoved her to the ground. “My bad.” I said, then I turned to walk away. I heard her scowl, but I just made my way to the freezer in the snack aisle before she had a chance to make an even bigger issue out of nothing. I grabbed the last of my favorite ice cream flavor, Funfetti Party Cake.

“Watch out!”

A group of rambunctious teenagers suddenly ran by and shoved into me. I yelped and lost grip of the ice cream, which fell onto the floor. The lid somehow fell off, and ice cream began to spill out. I watched in horror as colorful swirls and chunks of cake bits spilled across the floor.

The piercing laughter of the teenagers made my blood boil, but I didn’t have time to confront them. It wasn’t worth it to cry over spilled ice cream, especially since I only had thirty minutes left now, so I decided to just go to the chips.

As I walked toward the shelves of potato chips, I suddenly felt myself slip. I tried to grab onto the shelf, but it just cracked off. I fell hard on my back, taking the shelf and the bags of chips with me. As I laid on the floor, covered in bags of chips and nachos, a giant soda bottle from a nearby shelf made its way down. The soda missed landing on me just by a few inches, but the impact of the fall was enough to cause a fizzy explosion. Cola burst all over me, and I could hear the instant laughter of the teenagers. I sat up and was greeted by the flashes of their phones as they recorded me.

“What a dumbass.” One of them snickered.

“What the hell is your problem?” I asked. Clearly, they were messing with me, somehow.

“Maybe be more careful next time.” Another one of the teenagers taunted.

I shoved the potato chip bags off me and began to get up. The teenagers ran away giggling to themselves. “Fucking cowards.” I mumbled as I wiped sticky drops of soda off my face. I looked at my watch and saw that I had only twenty minutes left. Great, those damn teenagers were going to make me miss my show.

I decided that the snacks weren’t worth it, and that I would just have to head home and enjoy the finale without any snacks.

As I walked toward the exit, I saw a cashier glued to her phone. She was there by herself, and she was completely immersed in whoever she was texting instead of doing her job. I stormed over to her. “Did you not hear what those teenagers were doing? They were running around the store and terrorizing me. I’m drenched in soda because of them, and they made me spill chips and ice cream everywhere.”

The cashier didn’t make any eye contact with me. Instead, she just yelled into the microphone in front of her, “Cleanup on Aisle Four!” She went back to her phone, and didn’t even look up at me.

I rolled my eyes. “Gee, thanks. Nice to know how much you guys care about your customers.”

Suddenly, I felt a sharp pain in the back of my head and then heard a thud behind me. “Ow, what the fuck?” I yelled as an apple rolled in front of me. I turned around, expecting to see those teenagers again. Instead, no one was there. The store was completely quiet and empty. “Did you see tha-” I started to ask the cashier, but she was gone too.

I looked around, the sudden silence weighing down on me uncomfortably. “Hello?” I called out. No response. I didn’t know what was going on, but I didn’t want to be apart of it. I began to run toward the door, but another apple pelted onto the back of my head. This time, the force was so strong that I fell forward. I struggled to breathe as more of the apples fell on me. I knew no one was around, but I still screamed in hopes that someone would hear me. As expected, there was no response.

This is it. I thought. This is how I go. Buried under a mountain of freaking apples.

“Say please.” I heard a woman’s voice say.

“Huh?” I asked. “Who’s there?”

“Say please, and I will help you.”

“Please, help!” I pleaded.

I heard a loud snap. Suddenly, all the apples covering me disappeared. Customers reappeared and surrounded me. They were either whispering or chuckling to themselves.

“She busted her ass.” I heard one customer mutter.

I lifted myself up slowly due to my aching back, and I saw the woman that I bumped into earlier standing over me. Her lips were curled into a smile as she held an apple in her hand.

“I hope you learned your lesson.” She said, smugly. “Next time, say excuse me.”