Borders

Interrupted from my reading, I looked up to see a woman in a wheelchair creating quite the ruckus in Borders bookstore. I was borrowing a free read of The Power of Now and she was harassing the bookstore employees. She ranted about the aisles being too small...not sure why she chose to take the tightest route in the store, and she claimed she couldn't find anything. She screamed no one was helping her look for the Blue Dog book. Although the guy following patiently behind her with an armful of books and a walkie-talkie appeared to be appeasing her every need. She vented loudly to anyone near her (and across the store) and used colorful adjectives to describe her every move, and called the guy she bumped into with her wheelchair a pig. Clearly he should have seen her coming, and could have been out of her way. I was nestled into one of the comfortable leather chairs positioned between the cards section and a main aisle. There were four similar chairs all in a row. A couple of men were seated to my left and a woman on her cell phone whispering in French, sat next to me on my right. Our chairs were closer to the display shelves of cards and decorative boxes than the main aisle. However, the obnoxious woman in the wheelchair decided to barrel down the tight fit between the chairs and the card displays. She had to maneuver her chair over magazines that had been left behind, and our feet. She swore into the air at us and Borders for being there, as well as, making it too difficult for her to move along at a prosperous pace. She feigned interest in the boxes as she lightly tossed them around, and complained that the store was poorly organized. By now, I had my feet in the chair to ensure she would move along quickly. The woman on her cell phone rolled her eyes but didn't skip a beat in her conversation. I looked at the guys next to me and mouthed - "Who is she talking to?" The mean woman in the wheelchair was pushing past us with great force, bitterness and a need to complain that we were not helping her. We looked at each other bewildered. "Just sit there. Don't do anything!" She yelled at us or maybe the Borders employee who still followed behind her, picking up stuff she knocked off the shelves. She seemed miserable. I felt that she had only come to Borders to project her bitterness on others. I wasn't quite sure how to take her. I looked around the store wondering if it hadn't been laid out to accommodate handicap-challenged individuals...and was the lanky young guy following closely behind not meeting her needs? The guy next to me sighed loudly and mumbled - fucking rude. He was right.