You are the Second Person.
You stand in the express checkout line at the grocery store, patiently waiting for your turn at the register. It's slightly chilly in there, and your hand is nearly frozen where it grips the gallon of milk you're holding.
You'd put it on the little conveyor belt if you could, but it's already full, despite the fact that there's only one person in front of you.
In your other hand you have a bag of potato chips, a loaf of bread, and a bag of chocolate chip cookies. It's not a real grocery trip; you're just picking up the bare essentials.
You thought it'd be easy.
Just run in, grab a few things, and run back out. It should only take you a few minutes to gather more food than your distant ancestors were able to hunt and gather all day. That's what progress means.
Unfortunately, it didn't work out that easily.
You hadn't counted on her.
You glare at the thirty-something broad when she's not looking. This is her fault.
The conveyor belt is loaded down so much you suspect she's exceeded its carrying capacity. Twenty items or less your left foot. She's probably got five times that many, but the poor hassled cashier gave in when she pitched a bitch. Now you're stuck with the result.
Six loaves of bread, the cheap in-store kind, are scattered throughout the mess, with cereal boxes, canned vegetables, bags of chips, cookies, and juice containers stacked around, under, and occasionally on top of them. She has also added a new broom and a bottle of floor wax; the broom threatens to slide off the mound of food and clatter to the floor. There isn't a fresh vegetable or fruit in the mess, but you do spot a TV dinner that has some English peas mixed in with the might-be-chicken main course, and the juice probably has at least something similar to vitamin C in it's solution of artificial preservatives.
Clearly, this woman has no idea how to cook, and she and her family lives off of TV dinners and junk food. It even shows in her figure.
Her auburn hair is artfully arranged in what might have been considered attractive on a teenager ten years ago, but now it just looks like a wig. Her face was once pretty, but now not even the makeup can hide her huge pores and the faint beginnings of crow's feet around her eyes. Her breasts are perky, but her hips have widened and her rear has spread to the point she brushes the rack of candy behind her when she turns to place still more items on the conveyor belt.
All of the rest of the lines were twice as long as this one, and you casually walked over and stood behind her without thinking. However, given how much stuff she's planning on buying, you suspect you would have been better off in the longer lines.
She has also brought her son. Probably she couldn't afford a babysitter to take care of him while she was away, so she decided to bring him along and ignore him here.
He's at least three, and possibly four. His white and red t-shirt is stained and grubby, and she needs to wipe his mouth. His hair is blond, his eyes blue, and you can already tell that he is a grade A brat.
He's big enough that he should be on the floor, but he seems to prefer sitting in the child's seat on the back of the shopping buggy. He fits fairly well, actually, he seems about as thick as a pencil. Earlier, you watched him jump up and down in the big basket, screaming for a certain kind of cereal, but now he sits with his legs dangling through the holes, kicking his heel against the buggy rhythmically.
He twists his head around wildly, humming a loud tuneless song to himself. While this kind of behavior can be cute in your own kids, it is invariably annoying in public. His eyes alight on a brightly wrapped candy bar and he immediately lunges for it. For him, to see is to want.
Astonishingly enough, his mother notices his lunge. "Tommy!" she barks, twisting her face into a glower. "Leave that alone! You can have some candy when you get home!"
He ignores her, stretching his arm out to the fullest and leaning far out of the buggy.
"I said no," she repeats, and slaps his hand away.
His response is to start bawling at the top of his lungs as he cradles his hand to his chest. "Want candy!" he screeches.
"No!"
By this time everyone in the store is staring at the spectacle, but she seems oblivious.
"Dammit, Tommy, shut up! You're not getting any candy until we get home."
He screeches even more.
Sighing loudly in frustration, she quickly leans over and snatches up one of the candy bars and thrusts it at him.
He refuses it at first, but takes it when she grumbles in frustration. He wipes at his eyes with one wrist, then smiles to himself as soon as she turns away, his tears disappearing like magic. He's got her all figured out. And if your previous experience with brats is any indication, he's going to be a serious pain in the ass for everyone he's around for the rest of his life.
He twists around and drops his hard earned candy bar on the floor. It lies forgotten, as he has already got his eye on the fascinating goings on at the cash register.
He pushes against the side of the buggy, using his almost extraordinary childhood flexibility to draw both of his legs out of the holes in the back, getting his feet underneath himself, and cautiously standing up in the child seat in complete disregard of the established safety rules for such, which his mother should have stopped, if she had bothered to notice at all.
You look around. Everyone has studiously returned to his or her shopping routines, ignoring the spectacle. There isn't even anyone behind you in line. Prospective customers take one look and quickly figure out that the woman will be there a while, as she is insisting on paying with out of date coupons and food stamps despite the cashier's refusal.
Too bad you weren't astute enough to realize the same. But you've already been here a while and you're not going to give up now after investing this much time.
The little boy gingerly spins around in his seat on shaky footing to face his mother. You can see him prepare to step down into the basket.
You sharply kick the wheel of the buggy.
Already precariously balanced, the boy starts when his footing shifts, completely losing his balance and pitching forward in the basket. His arms flail wildly, but he misjudges the distance and the hard wire catches him on the elbows and skins a short path up the underside of his forearms. His head pitches forward as his arms hit, and the hard, knobby chrome catches him right across the bridge of his nose.
His startled cry of shock and fear alerts the entire store to his plight, but you're safe. No one saw you, and the boy is in no shape to recall just what exactly made him fall. Even the in store security cameras would be hard pressed to spot your covert nudge, although it would be unlikely that they would bother to look.
As you prepare to deal with the fuss your impulsive action causes, you can't help but realize that you feel better now. Vindictive, perhaps, or maybe righteous would be a better word. The kid was obviously a brat, and probably deserved what he got and more.
But you can't help but think: Wasn't the mother to blame far more than the poor child?
What kind of monster hurts a child and feels good about it?
Why did you do that?
Why do you feel good about it?
What is wrong with you?