skinny people take up too much Space

working retail grocery, i get to peer at a good cross-section of my world on a daily basis. i mean, everybody needs food, right? so at some point they need to come to me.

and by force of close association, watching these folks has become something of a hobby for me.

being a fat person, i can state with fair certainty that most fat people are very much aware of the space they take up. sometimes painfully so.

skinny guy bumps into skinny girl and you pretty much have the tumble of appologies and spark of interest that riddles most rom-coms of the last decade or three.

fat guy bumps into skinny girl, and he gets *the look* and is generally made to feel (either directly by her or indirectly by his own gnawing insecurities) like a monumental turd oafishly blocking the sidewalk.

 

skinny people, on the other hand, seem to be oblivious of the space they take up.

i got stuck behind one such obliviate today. she was stepping up to the corner of the salad bar. between that corner and the corner of the nearest display table there is enough room for two people to walk through.

even if one of them is big.

unless the oblivious skinny girl cocks her hip, left arm akimbo, and balances her basket there, elbow jutting, while she decides between romaine and spinach.

i am forced to go around another way (yes, i could have said something, but she’s the customer, blah, blah, blah).

having had it tossed in my face like that and being generally bored because the weather is gorgeous and very few people are shopping with us on this lovely saturday evening, i started watching people.

this time particularly on the lookout for the *skinny-block*

i was surprised how many average/thin people do this. i watched a woman with a full sized cart step up to an open cooler case and actually turn her cart out of her way athwart the entire aisle. there were several people behind her who now had to speak up or wait.

they don’t work here like i do, but they elected to wait.

another woman did something similar, actually turning her cart all the way around, blocking the center of the aisle.

a fat man in a cowboy hat stopped, looked at her oblivious back, looked at her cart, and promptly reached into the meat case and deposited several steaks into her fairly full basket before turning his own cart down a side aisle to go around.

sadly i had no opportunity to see her reaction at the register.

thank you, fat cowboy, wherever you are.

you inspired a blog and lightened my day.