by Underground Panther in the Sky, Unknown News
Nov. 15, 2005
Today I went with my mom to the C-mart.
They used to be located in a big warehouse, on a hill just outside BelAir, near Forest Hill. It was a cool, laid-back store to go to. Not
really crowded and a delight to shop there.
My mom and I have a long
history with C-Mart. We have been going to C-Mart since it opened
decades ago, on the site where the Mary Ristaeu state building is. It
was a funky discount store where I got my weird clothes that got me
teased in elementary school. I got my kickass punk stuff there in the
80's. C-mart has become a bit of a phenomena in recent
years. People came to the old store from all over. I was always amazed
to talk to people from New York Wyoming, or New Mexico shopping there.
We know all the people who work there, and since they closed up
their old location and moved to Joppa we finally got off our asses and
checked it out today.
We went to the new location today, and immediately I noticed that the store
atmosphere was tense. The people shopping today were rude. The isles
were left in disrespected disarray with the staff cleaning up after
adult people like two-year-olds. And I was saddened. A favorite laid-back
store had become a different place.
As I wandered around I saw some of the old timers, people I knew for
years, still working there. But they looked so stressed out. They told
me the new location sucked. I asked if the benefits and pay were still
good, and they said it was the same ... for now. They said the new
customers have bad attitudes. They didn't have to put up with this shit
at the old location, and I was told accounts about the purse riot (see right).
I had
no clue. I was flabbergasted, it was so bad the cops were called and
there was even a fucking helicopter was circling overhead to catch the
assholy people who had assaulted people in the store and were trying to
get away. I couldn't imagine that kind of chaos happening at the old
location.
My jaw dropped as I heard all the stories, as I talked with each of the
sweet ladies I had known forever. These purses that caused the riot
were high-end stuff, stuff I wouldn't buy even if I could afford it,
$2,000 and up designer purses.
C-mart usually, in their old
location, had strange stuff, designer stuff, insanely cheap. Cheap enough
sometimes that even I could afford it. So of course I liked going there. But never would I think they'd bother selling purses for $2,000 and up.
I was shocked at hearing accounts
of the way the customers fought over these purses. It was downright
bestial, and this hoard of crazed greedy women cornered and slapped a
stock person. One rude monster spit on a cashier's face. This store is not in a rich area. Joppa is frankly kinda dumpy.
I wondered to myself as I heard this, WHO in my area could WASTE $2,000
bucks on a purse?? JeeeZus.
For people in Joppa, that is like almost 2 months rent. As for most places
out here. Who could afford it? Are people THAT superficial, that starved
for the appearance of status that they blow THAT kind of money on that kind
of bullshit?? Goddamn, they gotta be in deep shit with the credit
cards. I was blown away. Was it out-of-state people?
I was told about shoppers who would rather not stop shopping to change
their babies diapers ... so as the diaper fills up, things fall out, so the
clerks will find the occasional turd scuttled under a rack when it
begins to stink. People put their chewed gum in sweaters. Disgusting.
I felt sad for the kids with overflowing diapers because their mommas
were so pathologically shopping-addicted and narcissistic.
Apparently a
new rich clientele are coming to C-Mart. And I have heard a lot about arrogant, unreasonable, bullying, crude and narcissistic rich people with
money to blow and too much attitude, from people I know who worked in
high0end stores. I am sooo glad I do not work retail, because I would
be in jail.
I never saw this kind of arrogance out of shoppers in the old C-Mart
store. I was shocked hearing from a clerk who asked some vain woman not to leave the shoes she tried on, on the floor where people could trip
over them. And this arrogant well-off monster told her off. For what?
Daring to ask a rude shopper to make the aisle safe for other shoppers
and kids! WTF??? The clerks told me of appalling shit shoppers have done in that
new store, the arrogance and insanity. Things I could not imagine doing
to any salespeople or to any other human beings for that matter.
I felt so
bad for the old-timer clerks, who I knew were such cool gentle
people. Damn good salespeople who knew exactly the kind of crazy shit I
love to wear cause they know my freaky ways. Who showed me where every
cat-themed item was, as soon as they ran into me. Open-minded
salespeople who happily helped my transgender friends get the best
classy dresses and skirts that fit their not so feminine yet waists, yet
looked like dynamite on them. I was informed half the old-timers had
quit from the stress of the new location. I was sad because these ladies
were older and I wondered where would they get work? Wal-Mart door
greeters? I shudder to think.
I began to wonder, as I observed these rude people strutting in designer
clothes, where did these unsocialized people with this overweening sense
of entitlement come from? What made their self-esteem so malignant? I
was told C-Mart is catering to a more wealthy crowd. Their prices went
up too. I left with a couple of necklaces and a lanyard to use for my
birthday iPod.
I don't think I'll shop there again. I might visit to say
hi to the staff because these people are sweet people. They said they
missed the old customers. They asked about my mom. Asked how my art was
doing, asked how my partner was and how my cats were. I just felt so sad.
As I waited in line I noticed these people were all paying with credit
cards. I was the odd cat out paying with cash. I had a scary thought ... it hit
me like a blast of arctic air down my back.
I began to really fear the day when all these vain,
narcissistic, selfish, superficial people with money to burn today, lose
it all. In debt up to their eyeballs, and no way to pay, when the debtors
come to confiscate it all. I fear the time when the economy cannot
sustain their 'lifestyles', when dollars are worthless and they discover
they can't afford food and nice clothes at the same time anymore. Oh shit, they will be monsters to deal with. They are already pretty damn
sociopathic, they won't even be civil in a store, they certainly will
not be civil in a economic breakdown.
They'll take whatever they can get
and fuck everyone else. Ironically, these are people that drive Audis and
Mercedes.
They can afford shit I never could afford and stuff I'd never even
want, and they have plenty apparently, yet they are vicious and vain and
greedy for more. Insatiable.
Either it's all on credit and the attendant symptomology of addicts
... or there is something about materialism that destroys the capacity
for love or even simple civility in a human being, when the
appearance of wealth and status is pursued above all else. Or it's
something darker.
All I can say is, when things get tough, when wants are deferred, beware
the "entitled" attitudes in others. These people who are pushy,
aggressive, and narcissistic, a lot of these people living in luxury on credit are bullies who will
try to dominate, rip off, or destroy others, to consume, take, and get theirs.
They are not healthy or sane people.
They'll crush anyone who gets in their way or denies them their
wants.
They are dangerous. They look normal now, but just get them under a
bit of stress or deny them what they want and damn, they'll have a two-year-old's temper tantrum in an adult body. They do not negotiate or
become reasonable with you, unless a cop or some bigger bully dominates
them or bribes them to stop. Rich people and the people who go in debt
for status symbols like designer purses are fucked up.
I fear a coming depletion of resources. It will
rapidly escalate into a war over resources, where those of us with
hearts and empathy, and ironically we who know poverty and don't fear it
worse than death, who are not scared to share what we have, will have to
defend ourselves from the con men, bullies, takers, and self-entitled types.
In reality we may very well have to kill off the arrogant, morally
inferior, overweening egos, the wealthy, self-entitled, aggressive,
selfish with malignant narcissism, no consciences, and a tendency to bully
others to get their own way and fuck everyone else.
If we don't
quit pretending
they are "normal," they have a conscience, they can be civil, and if we "tolerate" that kind
of power game bullshit out of bullies too much, we will lose our lives,
freedom, and future to these pathological, toxic, unsocialized, sick, over-ambitious, bully people. We have already lost too much to these people,
and have given them too much power.
I fear for all gentle people with a conscience in this world. I really
do.
We with a conscience cannot let our pity be misused and our hearts
exploited by vicious pretenders and dominators. We have to find a way to
say no to the self entitled, and do what we have to do to protect the
tenderhearted from exploitation, so that we are not harmed by these
sociopathic people when the sociopaths don't get their way and freak out
to force their way.
We need to learn to say, Bully, I don't have to
tolerate your crap, or care about your feelings, or share our stuff with
you, and if you try to take it we will kill you. And if they try to bully and
take, we need to just kill them.
And we have to learn how to not feel guilty for
dominating the dominators, for drawing the line with those who will not live and let live, and not
identifying with them as if they were like us. They are
not like us.
For I know, the bullies of this world feel no guilt when they hurt
salespeople, or run from the police to avoid assault charges from
fighting over a expensive purse, or let their children's diapers go unchanged
and scuttle the turds under the racks. They don't have a conscience to feel shame with. That
is why they are dangerous. They cannot be trusted without a threat or
'authority' to make them behave, or else.
There is a difference in people, and it has nothing to do with
appearance, race, sex, sexual orientation, etc. It has everything to do
with a person's "personality orientation," their lack of conscience, lack of
capacity for shame, lack of empathy, and unwillingness to care for others' wellbeing without obvious self-gain.
A person like that you cannot trust, and
you cannot be around without their harming you or messing up any
relationships you have. There is a word for them: Behenna -- they who force
others to be as they are.
We all can be Behennas. Some people with a
conscience, however, have to learn to use discernment of character, and
that inner locus of control to know when to be like them and when not to.
It's a subtle but unmistakable, very, very vital difference in humans, a
difference too many kind people like to pretend is not there. It is a
conscience, that part of us that hurts like a thousand knives when your
own guilty wrath falls on your own head, when you do something you know
is wrong. That conscience mechanism is so misunderstood and maligned by
our current culture, it is labeled the disdained wisdom, weakness, and
humility and civility. The strength of conscience in a few ambitious and
bold people can destroy empires.
But that moral compass within, is so
very important that any civilization that exists could not function without it
as anything but the ugliest of fascism. People with a conscience are morally superior to people without one. Those with a conscience are those who love freedom, and live
and let live, share and love and each other and the world enough not to
abuse it. These are the noble human beings, the lights of the world that
together can hold back the darkness of sociopaths who
think it's OK to say I got mine, fuck you and fuck the world.
To all the bullies with no heart or conscience I say, Fuck you. I know
what you are...
To the people with a heart and a conscience who are scared of these
narcissistic thugs, I say: You have an ally with the Panther. I'll watch your
back and claw the bullies' eyes out, even when you are afraid to take
that kind of responsibility for your actions. It is a vow I have made
for myself. I will stand up to them, because my own conscience demands it.
I'd rather
take the risk of standing up and dealing with bullshit and temper tantrums, than face my own shamed conscience for not doing anything.
I will not
stand by and watch, enable or be a bully to non-bullies, because in reality, someone
has to stand up against the bullies and do whatever it takes, or we
will all be truly fucked.
Is anyone else with me?
© by the author.
What do you think?
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When things get tough, when wants are deferred, beware the "entitled" attitudes in others.
These people who are pushy, aggressive, and narcissistic, a lot of these people living in luxury on credit are bullies who will try to dominate, rip off, or destroy others, to consume, take, and get theirs.
They are not healthy or sane people.
They'll crush anyone who gets in their way or denies them their wants.
They are dangerous.
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Handbag sale leads to scuffles at C-Mart
Associated Press
Nov. 4, 2005
JOPPATOWNE, Md. -- Pandemonium forced managers of a discount store in Joppatowne to close shop briefly after hundreds of unruly customers began scuffling over deeply discounted designer handbags.
C-Mart had been advertising the sale for months. But shortly after the store opened on Thursday morning, managers called in Harford County sheriff's officers, when pushing and shoving broke out among customers taking advantage of the rare chance to snag a good deal on high-end handbags. The sale was halted and the doors locked for hours, after the crowd exploded in anger over the store's attempt to manage the flow of nearly 1,000 customers.
The event gave shoppers -- mostly women -- a chance to save hundreds of dollars on purses from designers such as Prada, Chanel and Gucci. But when the numbered-ticket system devised to ensure orderly entry of shoppers into the store broke down, the mood among shoppers turned from giddy to irate.
It took nearly 20 deputies to restore order, and the store shut down for several hours to regroup.
"The deputy on the scene said it was very unusual to see women fighting over purses," Lt. Jim Eyler, a spokesman with the Harford County Sheriff's Office told The Baltimore Sun. There were no injuries or arrests.
C-Mart Vice President Keith Silberg said, "It was a lot of people, more than we expected, and at a certain point, our interest became keeping people safe."
The first customers in line said they arrived about 3 a.m. By 10 a.m., when the doors opened and employees began handing out numbered tickets.
"It's every kind a girl dreams of," Carrye Campbell, 26, from New Market, said of the selection.
Two hours after opening, Silberg ordered the store closed for four hours.
"Hell, no!" some women yelled. "False advertising!" others threatened. "I'm going to sue!"
Silberg offered to buy hamburgers for shoppers to eat while they waited outside. But many had driven long distances -- some as far away as rural Virginia. "This is one of those kind of sales that happens a few times in a business like ours' history," Silberg said, adding later that about 1,500 of the 2,000 bags had been sold by early evening.
As originally published
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We with a conscience cannot let our pity be misused and our hearts exploited by vicious pretenders and dominators.
We have to find a way to say no to the self entitled, and do what we have to do to protect the tenderhearted from exploitation, so that we are not harmed by these sociopathic people when the sociopaths don't get their way and freak out to force their way.
We need to learn to say, Bully, I don't have to tolerate your crap, or care about your feelings, or share our stuff with you, and if you try to take it we will kill you.
And if they try to bully and take, we need to just kill them.
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