Profligation of the species.

So it's mid-afternoon and I find myself in the middle of a huge "supercenter" store which I won't name but most can guess. It's that time of day where, if caught in that place, you get punished for it because the checkout lines have grown longer than the waiting list to see a Green Packer's game live.

That's when I get the bright idea to keep the number of items in my shopping cart down to only ten, affording me the quickest possible exit from the madhouse. Gently placing a bunch of bananas in my cart I head towards my last item. It's a loaf of bread. But in rechecking my number of items, I am saddened to learn a loaf of bread would be item number 11, disqualifying me from the speediest checkout. I'd have to go to the 20 items or less lines and that didn't seem expedient, what with me there with 11 items behind others with 19 and 20.

So I forgo my bread. Instead of eggs and toast tomorrow, maybe I'll have pancakes, or juevos rancheros (using tortillas).

Arriving at the ten items or less lane, there's but two people. The one being checked out and the woman immediately ahead of me. I feel good. It was worth forgoing the bread. But as I'm standing there, I noticed the pregnant lady just ahead of me has 25-30 items in her shopping basket--in the 10 items or less line!

I begin a slow burn. As I feel the bile boiling up inside, I wonder if this woman, with total disregard for her fellow man, is the result of a presidency with same. From his state and defense departments, food and drug administration, his attorney general committing felonies in the name of "justice" gives her comfort in knowing she is above "10 items or less" rule and she doesn't give a shit! It's but another manifestation of the absolute breakdown for the respect of the law and order a society needs if it is to maintain itself. A total disregard for the tenets of civilization and, in the process, a blatant contribution to its dismantling.

Fortunately that's when I noticed the other "10 items or less" checkout is just finishing up with its last customer. I am so relieved as I push my cart past the pregnant neocon Karl Rove/Alberto Gonzales worshipper in a blood pressure saving surge.

I am spared saying what I had just finished practicing for her in my mind. It's another narrow escape from losing my civility to the uncivil contributing to the breakdown of civilization. For as I pass that pregnant woman with two and a half dozen items in the "10 items or less line," I say under my breath, "Just what society needs: A woman who can't add, but it doesn't stop her from multiplying!"