If you use a lot of coupons, you’ve probably come across this type a time or two – the frowning, sighing, grumbling shopper behind you in line, who’s annoyed at having to wait for the cashier to scan your coupons. Just be glad, though, that sighing and grumbling is all that they do, and that you haven’t had a fellow shopper get in your face and call you a “****” or a “***” or even a “*****”.
That’s precisely what police in Cartersville, Georgia say happened at a local Walmart this past weekend. A Bartow County Sheriff’s deputy was called to the store Sunday night, to investigate a report of an altercation between two shoppers.
According to the sheriff’s incident report, 35-year-old Steven Hudgins was standing in line behind an unnamed female shopper, who was having an animated discussion with the cashier. Hudgins said he thought she was arguing over the price of a loaf of bread. So, exasperated at the wait, he offered to pay for the bread just to get things moving along.
The woman said it was not the price of the bread that was the issue – it was the coupon that she had for the bread, and several other items. As she returned to quibbling over the coupons with the cashier, Hudgins allegedly had enough.
“Steven started arguing with her about the amount of stuff she was buying and how long she was taking,” the incident report reads, “at which time she told him that if he was in such a hurry she will help put his stuff back in his buggy and he could go to another line.”
The woman proceeded to do just that, placing Hudgins’ items back into his shopping cart, telling him that “she waited her turn in line and it is now her time and she will take as long as she wants. Then she told him that he needed to call her husband and he will realize who he is dealing with.”
At that time, as the mercifully-sanitized incident report describes, Hudgins “told her he does not give a ‘****’ about her husband, then he called her a ‘*****’. Then Steven stated that he told her he takes that back, she’s not a ‘*****’, rather she was a ‘****’.”
Well, them’s fightin’ words!
The woman told the deputy that Hudgins got in her face, yelling at her and causing her to fear for her safety. He allegedly told her he didn’t “give a ‘****’ if she calls 911.”
So she did. Two Walmart managers waited with Hudgins until the sheriff’s deputy arrived. Hudgins was ultimately arrested and charged with simple assault and disorderly conduct.
As for the woman, no mention was made about whether she eventually won whatever argument she was having about her coupons, or whether it was she or her cashier who was in the wrong. But next time she has a stack of coupons and heads to a Walmart filled with impatient shoppers – she might want to try self-checkout.
Image sources: Walmart / Bartow County Sheriff’s Office
o she does not need to go to self check out. She waited for her turn at the register and shr deserves for her needs to be waited on the same as this gentlemen does. If he had a problem at checkout I’m sure he would have demanded it be taken care of no matter how long it took and regardless of who had to wait in line.