I was in line at the pharmacy. This :grillman: :maybe-later-kiddo: power couple in front of me, of the distinct "The Wife dresses as fancy and distinguished as she can, while The Man Of The House dresses like a sack of flour wearing a Punisher skull t-shirt with a thin blue through it with cargo shorts" variety. The pharmacist had a :doomer: face that I felt kinship with, and looked too tired to hide it.

:grillman: "DID YOU CHECK THE BACK?" (caps emphasis his) "I DIDN'T SEE YOU CHECKING THE BACK."

:doomer: "The area behind me is 'the back.' What you see is what you get-"

:maybe-later-kiddo: "Excuse me? What did you just say?"

:doomer: "That's it. That's 'the back.' I'm sorry, that really is the entire-"

:grillman: "REALLY? FUCKIN' REALLY? You going to give me that much fuckin' attitude, son?"

:maybe-later-kiddo: snapping her fingers at someone that she thinks is the manager, arm reached over the counter, stretching around the covid-era sneeze shield, while that not-manager kept her head down and kept working at her station

:grillman: "I'M GOING TO COUNT TO THREE. ON THREE, YOU'RE GOING TO CHECK THE FUCKIN' BACK."

No gunshots ensued, but the :doomer: did a walk of resignation around the little visible back area anyway, pretending to be looking for something.

:grillman: "Was that so hard?"

Things calmed down from there, and after a dull and stupid extra few minutes, :grillman: :maybe-later-kiddo: left without anything else remarkable to talk about, except that they wanted written information about :doomer: to send to the pharmacy's management.

I sort of made the same :doomer: face at :doomer: in sympathy, but that's all I could really do. Is it really that hard to not make miserable people more miserable?