I am glad I am not the only one who is offended by this prevalent & increasing rudeness.
Here’ my most recent story.
I was in Southampton in the Health Food Store. A man infront of me had bought soup. He paid in cash, got his change and asked for a spoon.
The cashier handed him a spoon and he said, “Are your hands clean?”
She looked puzzled and he continued, “Have you washed your hands?”
She answered, ”Yes…”
I’m thinking he’s just handled US currency and he’s worried about his spoon…
- A
On my way to Sagg Main Beach, I wandered into Loaves and Fishes and asked the old(ish) lady behind the counter how much a particular goat cheese was.
“Why would you want to know?” was the response.
Sufficeth it to say I’m never shopping there again, but I may very well have an accident with a carton or two of eggs there one of these days.
-RJ
It’s the people who leave trash all over the place, or talk really loudly on their cellphones while bumping into you walking on sidewalks or in stores … or the jerk who sat in her huge SUV in the firezone at Waldbaums, blocking the narrow roadway and people from getting their cars OUT of their parking spaces, who shrugged and kept yapping away on her phone when I banged on her windshield.
-TS
My friend and I were going to get bagels at Goldberg’s in East Hampton near the beverage store and as you would expect on a Sunday morning, the lines were quite long. A very old man (looked around 90) was waiting in front of me patiently when this young guy with the baseball cap turned around walks up to the front of the line and tells one of the servers “I am not waiting on this line for one bagel”.
She looked scared and gave him his bagel.
My friend and I looked at each other and commented on the entitled people of the Hamptons. We finally left and were going west on 27 and there was quite a backup as you approach the light near the CVS. We were going to turn right at the light going towards the IGA but we waited in line as we were not near the broken line that allows you to go into the turning lane.
Suddenly a car comes flying by on the shoulder of the road and my friend screams “it’s him.”
We look at each other in disgust when a police car with its lights on goes flying by us on the shoulder and, you guessed it, he gets pulled over. We high fived each other and it was a moment that brought us some insane joy.
I wanted to pull up to the police car and say “he cut the bagel line too” but I just enjoyed watching him sit PATIENTLY as the cop wrote the ticket.
- Peggy
A friend was eating chips in the parking lot of Waldbaums in Southampton.
An old lady comments, “we don’t eat in public in Southampton. That’s for New York City.”
She then goes down the street to her car, and leaves her cart in the middle of the sidewalk.
I had to restrain myself from confronting her. No excuse for rude behavior even if you are old!
- Danny
I was in the CVS in East Hampton the other day, waiting patiently in line. When this older (had to be) city couple came up and stood right at the counter behind the person that was being helped.
So I leaned in and said, “The line is over here!”
So they look at me like I have ten heads and say, “Well why would the line be over there? How is anybody supposed to know that. That is stupid.”
So I say “Well that is the way it has always been in this store!”
Not the best rude story, could have been a lot worse. It is just the intro to the summer. And I will NOT keep my mouth shut!
- BF
I’m born and bred in East Hampton, but have been living for about a year in rural Nova Scotia. (Where strangers call you “dear,” and always wave other cars into the flow of traffic, and actually smile at you and say “hi” on the sidewalk. Yeah, kind of like people did here 30 years ago….) Anyway, I’ve gotten totally unaccustomed to the insane, insane, blood-pressure-raising rudeness of home.
This morning, I had an encounter with such gratuitous meanness and rudeness that it almost gave me a heart attack! In the past, I’ve often been a customer at a local printing store. (Okay. Guess what? The shop’s name is Montauk Printing. In East Hampton, on the Reutershan parking lot.) This morning, the sun was shining, there were no crowds in town, and I was in a great mood. Then I went into Montauk Printing to buy some paper.
I walked in, picked up a pack of paper, put it on the counter, and — in order to free my hand to get at my wallet in my purse — placed a cup of coffee onto the counter top. “GET THAT OFF MY COUNTER” shrieked the owner, leaping towards me. She didn’t say this in any kind of joking way. She didn’t say this in any kind of explanatory way. She said it in the infuriated, correctional tone a prison guard would use when correcting the behavior of a convicted murderer who had put his hand on the prison fence.
Because I’ve become totally unaccustomed to inexplicable, mindless rudeness and meanness, I was very meek and mild and apologetic. “I’m sorry,” I simpered, and took the coffee cup off the counter as quickly as humanly possible. (The coffee cup wasn’t dripping or anything whatsoever. But I guess the owner doesn’t want anything that might potentially leave liquid anywhere near a surface that often holds paper products, right? Unlike in other stores, where it’s considered polite to place drink cups on a counter, out of harm’s way, at Montauk Printing you should automatically know in advance that this is an unspeakable crime.)
The owner then explained that I had picked up the wrong kind of paper. “If you want regular paper, take the one that says ‘Meteor,’ on the shelf behind you, to the right, with blue and black….” So I said, “Oh, good, thanks,” and stepped back to the shelf and put my hand on a blue-and-black packet of paper marked “Meteor.”
“No, not that one!” she barked at me, with inexpressible force and annoyance, “the one on the RIGHT”
I shifted my hand to another packet — also blue-and-black, also marked “Meteor” — right next to the first one, and asked, “This one?” And she barked, with mind-boggling unnecessary nastiness: “THAT’S YOUR RIGHT, ISN’T IT??????”
Oh. My lawrd. Who talks to another human being like this? Much less a customer? I just gave a wry smile and paid and thanked her.
But WTF? If someone had behaved like this in Nova Scotia, literally, people would think they were, literally, ill, and would be express concern, and would gather in neighborly groups to see if the crazily, inexplicably rude person
perhaps needed a doctor.
- Left for Nova Scotia
