Altercation at Santa Monica Ralph's

Le and I were in the express checkout the other day at Ralph's. I insisted on exchanging her expensive dryer sheets for the store brand because they're cheaper--this is besides the point, though (and we're talking significantly cheaper, so don't comment on the REASON for us being in the express lane at Ralph's; just accept it).

In front of us, a blind woman with a seeing-eye dog was paying (the woman was paying; not the dog). She was a tad slow, what with not being able to see the money as she counted it out and all. This guy behind us in line slammed his can of Natty Light on the counter and yelled, "This is the express lane. That means you need to move faster." Very red neck, loud, already probably a bit drunk.

There was this long, tense pause. I was trying to process the fact that this man had yelled at a blind woman--an offense that automatically puts you on the hell-bound list. I couldn't move, and I don't remember breathing. It was quiet.

The woman slowly turned in the direction of the man's voice. It was like an old fashioned Old West face-off. Quiet, slow, tense.

"What did you say?!" the woman spat out. "What did you just say?"

The guy suddenly got nervous--either from the fear of the woman confronting him, or noticing she was blind and he'd yelled at her. "I just...I just...I just have one thing and I was-"

"That is no way to talk to a woman! I am a woman and nobody talks to me that way! Do you hear me? Didn't your mother teach you how to talk to a woman?"

The man was sweating now. "Look, I'm sorry...I didn't mean it."

"You didn't mean it? You shouted at a woman. You have no manners! That is absolutely disgraceful!"

He was scared now--almost cowering, though the woman made no moves towards him. "I didn't know you...I'm sorry, I just..."

"Yeah, you just! You need to go back to Ohio or wherever it is you're from! No manners!" Basically, she called him a redneck here without even saying the word. It was in her tone. Her seeing-eye dog came over at this point and sniffed me. However, you're not supposed to pet a seeing-eye dog (no matter how cute--because they're working, and you'll confuse them), so I just ignored him. He seemed to give a disgusted look at the redneck, but I couldn't tell for sure. "Your mother should have taught you some manners--not to shout at strangers, and especially not women! That is just disgusting behavior!"

She finished paying, gave the redneck a couple more angry looks, and left.

I still wonder if he was so afraid because the woman confronted him, because he realized she was blind, or because of a combination of the two. His loud burst was the type of thing you wouldn't expect to have challened. I wasn't going to challenge it. He looked like a dirty redneck who wanted a fight. Maybe he wanted one--but probably not from a little old blind woman with a potentially ferocious seeing-eye dog. Or maybe something peeked through the ruins of his manners and sense of decency. "Thou shalt not yell at old blind women." And maybe seeing this woman in sunglasses with her dog brought back a moment of clarity: "I am surely going to hell."

I think in her anger, he remembered his own mother who possibly DID teach him not to yell at women. He remembered her, perhaps not even that long ago (he looked late 30s early 40s). He perhaps sensed how disappointed his mother would be for him to be reminded by the VERY woman he yelled at how to talk to women. Maybe it was this same mother that drove him to drink--indirectly causing him to NEED that liquor he'd slammed on the counter to forget about his life and his mother...

And typically I hate going to Ralph's. I'm more of a Trader Joe's man.