A Lesson in Manners at the Saint Paul Breadsmith

Day: March 7th, 2010
Time: approximately 10:45
Location: Saint Paul Breadsmith, Snelling Ave and Grand Ave

After putting in a little Sunday morning studying at Cahoots I decided to walk down to Snelling Ave to get some fresh baked bread from Breadsmith. After waiting for a minute or two a gentleman in his early sixties wearing a red winter jacket walks in and either doesn’t see me and the two patrons in front of me who have been patiently waiting for fresh baked, artisan bread and pastries or he decides to ignore us and try to get his goods before we get ours. Sizing him up as we are all waiting I am trying to figure if he really didn’t see us and how likely it is that he is going to bolt for the first open cashier. At the same I’m trying to decide if I am going to say anything to him if he does in fact decide to be a punk knowingly or not.

The next cashier opens up and says, “I can help who’s next in line.”

The “gentleman” in the red coat walks forward and as he is pulling out his wallet I say, “Sir, excuse me sir, I believe the two ladies and myself were here before you.” He said something about not realizing there was a line and in my head I thought to myself, “Yeah, everyone that was here before you is just chilling, not waiting to place an order or anything. You know we live in a society right and there are rules in a society that help prevent it from spiraling into chaos, you know that right?”

The cashier shrugs her shoulders and says apologetically, “I don’t know who was first.” He looked a bit flustered and taken aback, but he let the woman two spots ahead of me in line go as well as the woman directly in front me. I don’t blame the cashier for her response. I would have said the same thing if I was in her position and didn’t know who was first.

The man in the red coat and I never ad yet to make direct eye contact and never really did through the whole ordeal. I was unsure if he was going to let me go before him, even though I was absolutely sure that he came in after I did. As luck would have it, the cashier that opened next was closer to me so we did not have to fight to the death to see who would go next.

As I am getting my the bread the women who was directly in front of me says, “Thanks.”

I say, “No problem.” and mention something about working on standing up for myself.

Just standing up for myself and two other random people, one with two kids running around was enough to make my day. Her thank you made it that much better.

As I am leaving I see that the man in the red coat is leaving driectly in front of me. So not only did evryone get to go in the correct order, but the man in the red coat still got out before me. I slow down a bit not wanting to have another awkward interaction and feeling a little bit bad about the entire situation, even though I know I am 100% in the right. I end up heading the same way down the sidewalk as him and as he is getting into his vehicle he says something along the lines of, ” I’d appreciate it if you weren’t so rude next time.”

I was a bit surprised by this, but not wanting to escalate the the situation over such a minor verbal exchange I say, “I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to be rude.”

He replied back, “Well it came off that way.” I say again that I wasn’t trying to be rude, he then gets into his suv, and we both go on our merry ways.

As I am walking down Snelling Ave towards Selby I am going over the brief interaction in my head. As I think about it more and more I can’t believe the guy had the gall to ask me not to be so rude. I will admit that I often have volume control issues. I think this is in part due to my preception that I don’t get heard. It’s also due to the fact that I was a soccer goalkeeper and spent much of each game yelling quite loudly at various teammates. I don’t disagree with the man in the red coat that I may have come off as rude and startled him, at least from his point of view, but my lack of suaveness does not mean that I was actually being rude. I would argue that that he was surprised by me speaking up and not really sure how to react in the situation. Not wanting or not thinking to look at his own actions he assumed or at least stated that I was being rude. He also does this when nobody else is around, which may have been a coincidence. He did wait until we were half a block from the store, but he may not have even known I was behind him.

Now a joke to help me make a joke. This joke uses stereotypes and I think it’s funny. If you don’t, well that’s just tough $hit.
There are three young boys eating their lunch in the elementary school cafeteria. It’s a few weeks before x-mas [I’m not a big Christ fan so I generally x him out;)] and as young children tend to do they are talking rather excitedly about what they want for x-mas and what they think they are getting.

The first boy, an African-American says, “I’m getting a bike! It’s gonna be so awesome!”

The other two reply, “No way, how do you know you’re getting a bike?”

The first boy replies, “I was playing hide-n-seek with my sister and I saw it in the basement behind the washer.”

The second boy, a Puerto Rican, says, “Unbelievable, I’m getting a bike too!”

The first boy says, “Awesome, we can go riding together all over the place! But, how do you know you are getting a bike?”

The second boy replies, “My mom asked me to get x-mas decorations from the attic and I saw a brand new schwin under a sheet! It’s got to be for me!”

The third boy, an Italian lad, can’t believe his ears and exclaims, “I’m getting a bike too!”

The first two boys, nearly shouting now, say in unison, “How do you know you’re getting a bike?”

The third boy so excited now and almost tripping over his words says, “Well, I told my dad a few days ago that I wanted a bike for x-mas and he said [in a thick Italian accent], “Yeah, you’ll get a bike for x-mas! (Now grabbing his craotch) I’ve got your bike right here!”

Thanks to my good friend JB for the joke. He’s from Strong Island and tells it much better than I’ll ever be able to.

To the man in the red coat I say in a thick Italian accent, “I’ve got your rudeness right here!”

What do you think?
Do you have a similar story? Share it here. How would you have reacted in a similar situation? What do you think about my reaction to the man in the red coat? Agree or Disagree, I want to hear what you have to say.

Moral of the Story:
Be aware of your surroundings.

To the Saint Paul Breadsmith:
You’re lack of any sort of crowd control is extremely annoying, especially given that there are two entrances to your building, and allows for situations like that detailed above to happen much more frequently than they actual should. I think you should do something about it and I will be forwarding this post your way and will eagerly await your response.

Reflection:
I don’t consider myself to be quick with words and this often leads to me thinking of things to say long after I wish I would have said them. If this situation were to happen again, I would do pretty much the same thing until he said something to me outside the store. Once he said something I think I would have walked towards him slightly menacingly, but not all the way up to him, and ask him very politely if he was aware that there were three people waiting in front of him, regardless of the fact that there “appeared” to be no line. I then would have asked him if he thought that whoever was quickest or sneakiest should be served first or if there should be some sort of civilized order to the whole thing. Then, I would have punched him in the face. That’s not what I would have done but it’s fun to think about doing stuff like that.

Things to improve upon in my writing:
My use of tense, mostly past and present, but I just don’t care that much right now.