Against my better judgement (or more a total lack of any judgement whatsoever) I stupidly decided that in-store shopping, the weekend before Christmas, was a thing I was going to voluntarily do.

But I thought it was all worth it when one of the stores was having an incredible sale on some stuff I needed. Bonus! The downside – due to said incredible sale the place was wall-to-wall people and the lines for checking out were horrendously long. Like “25 minutes long” long. So as I was standing there in line, I look next to me and I see this:

And I mean, who DOESN’T think that a fluffy pink Tribble with hand sanitizer shoved up it’s butt is the greatest Christmas present ever? (Communists, that’s who. And I am a PATRIOT goddammit!) So I grab it and toss it in my bag.

Almost immediately I am confronted by a very irritated looking woman.

“Excuse me, but that’s mine. I saw it from over there,” waves hand in general direction across the store, “and I was just walking over here to grab it.”

Honestly, I was actually rendered speechless for a few moments. I wasn’t actually sure how to respond to this statement. I decided to slap a very nice big smile on my face and go with helpful deflection.

“They may have more. The lady over there,” motion to a salesperson who had asked me on an average of every 5 minutes if I was okay and needed any help, “she’s very helpful.”

“Fine, but if they don’t have any more then that one is mine.”

I choose to simply not respond, keeping the smile plastered on my face. She just shoots me a glare and makes her way through the throng to the sales lady.

Several minutes later she is back, with said sales lady in tow. “They don’t have anymore of them,” she states as though that somehow means something.

Trying my best to slap what I hope looks like a sympathetic look on my face, “Oh man that really sucks. I’m sorry.” I make no move to take it out of my bag.

And here’s the thing… If the woman had walked up to me in the first place and said something like “Hey I saw that from across the way but it took me a few minutes to get over here with the crowds, and my daughter/ niece/ mother/ whatever really really loves pink Tribbles and I was wondering if you would mind parting with it?” I would have just handled the damn thing over. I mean, I didn’t want it that bad, it was just a random thing I thought was cute and picked up while I was stuck in line. But at this point it was the principle of the thing. That lady was getting that Tribble over my dead body.

She turns to the sales lady and angrily motions at me, “See? I told you! She won’t give it back to me! You need to make her to give it back.”

Back? You never HAD it you freaking sociopath!

I turn to the sales lady, “I got it from the display right here,” I motion to the display which is clearly full of hand sanitizers and hand sanitizer holders, which I’m standing about 5 inches away from. “Unfortunately I just got to it before she did.”

“You need to make her give it to me!” I wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised if she’d actually stamped her foot. She did look like there was a fairly good chance she was going to punch me.

“I’m sorry, Ma’am. But if she took it off of the shelf and put it in her bag then it really is hers. I apologize again that we are out of stock of that one, but we do have a lot of other options,” motions to the shelves completely full of them next to me, “and they’re all part of the sale.”

“As if I would buy anything from this store! You have the worst customer service I have ever seen!” She makes a big scene of practically throwing her bag on the floor in the middle of the store and prancing out.

The sales lady just looks at me, shrugs, and picks up the bag and walks away to go start restocking the items.

And that is the story of how a Tribble nearly got me punched in the face. At Christmas time. Peace on Earth and Goodwill Towards Men my ass.

Don’t forget to check out the rest of The Tangent Girl Volumes’ posts! Dozen and dozen of posts ranging from Christmas shopping violence to struggling with self-doubt to coping with sucky people to how I really feel about meatloaf. TTGV has it all! And don’t forget to follow me on Twitter (@tangentgirrl) and Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/TangentGirlVolumes/