Stress peak

At the moment, I know that I have reached my stress peak. How? Because nothing short of a disaster seems to dent my calm.

Usually I HATE going to the grocery store, particularly during the day. There are too many aggressive people with trolleys, children trying to throw themselves under my trolley wheels and huge lines.

Today, it didn't even bug me in the slightest. I just wandered along in a happy state. My handbasket became overloaded, so I just rearranged it so everything would fit, and held it so the handles didn't snap like little twigs under the huge load of veggies, fruit and rice milk.

When I got to the check-out, the lady working there managed to scan my rockmelon (Australian for "cantaloupe") in as a bag of tomatoes and then had to call for help to fix the problem. I looked at the picture on the checkout screen (they have LCD screens at my grocery store) of big, red tomatoes, looked down at my little rockmelon, and thought it was funny. (I'm an abstract and divergent thinker, and usually find things that are ridiculously out of place highly amusing. I'm not entirely losing my mind!) I didn't get annoyed at the delay at all.

As I was about to walk out of the checkout, with two heavy bags, the woman in the checkout next to me parked her trolley which was loaded with groceries and two small children, directly across my exit, meaning that I was trapped with two very full hands. (I am sure she didn't mean to do it, but was distracted as she had just been grocery shopping with two small children in tow!) With the help of the checkout lady, I managed to nudge the trolley away enough to escape, at which point the mother realised what she had done and apologised profusely. I really didn't mind at all, and found it amusing.

Normally, these things would have annoyed me a little. However, when I am under stress, I tend to function pretty well, and seem calmer and happier than normal. If I am under no stress at all, I get miserable and depressed. It is an odd personality quirk, and I don't think I would ever be capable of a laid-back life!

Just a quick note - has anybody else noticed that the Christmas decorations are up at the shop already?? The checkout lady mentioned to me that it is only 10 weeks away. I'm not really looking forward to Christmas day. It is the day you get to spend with the relatives that you don't like enough to spend time with normally. And you get to give them presents. Bah, humbug!!