I don’t get road rage although I have had my moments and it normally takes a lot to get me angry. I have however begun to develop a certain amount of what you might call mall rage.
I now seem to develop a rather disproportionate level of anger and frustration every time I’m forced to face a large shopping crowd or god forbid a slow walker.
I am not a shopper. I don’t mind the actual act of shopping but I simply cannot stand shopping crowds. I try to get my Christmas shopping done by November 1st each year not because of my tendency to organize but because I don’t want to face the insanity of Christmas shoppers.
There is something about that particular type of crowd that just gets to me. Concerts, outdoor events and other times I’m in a large crowd I can get a little cranky but I don’t get truly ticked off.
Change that situation over to a mall or a grocery store and suddenly I feel like I’m about to pull an incredible hulk moment and start smashing something.
When I go shopping I don’t tend to browse around between shops I know what I’m after I know what stores I need to head to and I want nothing more than to get to them and out as fast as possible. Except I always get stuck behind someone remarkably good at imitating a turtle.
They are completely unaware of anyone else as they stroll along no destination in mind as slow as humanly possible. They make sudden stops without warning and somehow always, always, zig when you zig and zag when you zag so that your desperate attempts to get past them invariably fail.
Stuck behind these type of walkers each failed attempt to get past them or each consecutive slow walker I face quickly ups my levels of frustration until I think my head is going to explode.
It seems the last few years that the malls are getting busier and busier, it’s no longer just at Christmas time it’s every single weekend and the weekdays aren’t much better. I thankfully don’t find myself in need of a mall very often and mostly stick to strip malls and stand alone retailers.
I forget once in awhile though and when looking for something such as shoes I’ll decide I need a bigger selection of stores in one place and attempt to face mall shoppers.
I really need to stop doing that.
