I know i've been tolerant 'til now, but here comes a warning,

I've chewed out 2 people today for coming into my shop yapping on cell-phones.

Generally I satisfy myself with just giving them baleful, disbelieving looks as they jabber away and shove credit cards at me, but it's getting to me. Because they are wholly oblivious to looks and to slower, poorer service (which I am hesitant to provide because I have standards and also because it keeps them here longer, which serves no one) I find I have no leverage to delicately suggest to them that they are acting in a fashion I deem untoward for my quiet, pleasant little wineshop.

So I have just started calling people out. Some vaguely pretty, suspiciously business-like mid-20s broad stormed in tonight talking at the top of her lungs as she made for the back wall and the recently popular S.American wines. I stared at her from the start as she failed to say hello, despite my store being roughly the size of a bathroom stall, and was dismayed to find her talking louder because my Anthony Hamiliton cd was being played at a comfortale, warm volume.

She grabbed a bottle, walked over, chatting loudly about something MITish and failed to look up when I asked for her identification, which she thrust at me after she shoved her credit card in my face. I checked the ID, ran the card, looked at her with mild disappointment for a bit while the credit machine processed and then handed her a slip to sign, which she did. She might have muttered thank you, im unsure, but as she took her bottle and made to leave, I asked her if she was aware what she was doing was rude.

The look on the face is priceless, because being called or assumed rude is still so horrifying to most people - despite, in my observation, most people I encounter at my places of business (and really, wherever else am I?) are tremendously uncouth and bereft of most of the basest measures of grace and politeness. She actually didnt seem to know what to say other than 'hold on' to the person on the phone. I asked her again if she was aware that walking through a store talking loudly on her phone and ignoring hte patron of said establishment might be considered rude. She responded 'I said hello' as if that were all that could be expected of her in these tough economical times.

I managed to eek an apology out her - which would have been more touching if she had taken the phone away from her ear at any point during the conversation, but I suppose I must take what I can get. Without reservation, I feel that what is left of polite society is being ground under the heel of iphones and the rampant douchebaggery that accompanies them.