The Expectancy Violations Theory of Judee Burgoon states:

“Expectancies exert significant influence on people’s interaction patterns, on their impressions of one another, and on the outcomes of their interactions.”

There are positive and negative valences that can occur given any interaction. Okay, then, with this in mind, here is a beautiful example of this in my experience at my local grocery store. 

I was shopping at Jewel during a cold night in December, I just ran in for a few items and with purpose moved to the express checkout.  As I came to the checkout lane a woman talking on her cell phone purposely cut me off with her cart without so much as a glance. She had a full-length fur coat, Ugg boots, expensive earrings, and blond hair pulled back in a sleek ponytail. She proceeded to blather on her cell phone and complain to the clerk at the same time about a damaged item waving her well-manicured nails all over the place. I looked at the sign above her head, it said 15 Items or Less. I looked at her cart…clearly an easy forty.  Game. On. 

I carefully took some items from her cart and put them in mine. She did not notice since she was too unaware, but the clerk shot me a confused look.  I winked at her and kept taking items slowly from the cart.  After a few minutes the woman did a double take and looked around. She was perplexed and spun around several times, ponytail whipping; until she saw the bag of frozen broccoli in my hand. 

“What are you doing? Is that my broccoli?” she demanded. 

To which I replied in a most reassuring and quiet tone,

“Okay, I am here to help you, since you clearly have an issue with counting. Go ahead and pay for those items first and I can help you with the rest…” I gestured my directions very clearly and smiled. 

She stammered, wide-eyed and started screaming in a high pitch,

“Give me my groceries!”

To which I replied, biting my lip from laughing,

“I am only trying to help you, it’s okay, I see you’re confused, I am trying to help you…”

The clerk was horrified, the woman demanded the police, I refused to break character; and this woman was screaming into her cell phone to someone about how this crazy bitch won’t give her the frozen broccoli.  The manager appeared and with hands up tried to calm this woman down.  By now all lanes had stopped, everyone was staring at her. 

The manager looked at me with one eyebrow up and said,

“Hi Michelle…”

I gave a quick wave and said,

“Hey…”

At this point, the manager shook her head smirking at me and apologized to the irate customer.  This woman screamed at her throughout the rest of the transaction waving her arms wildly and snapping her fingers in the manager’s face.

“You know this psycho? You know her?” she squawked incredulously.

She got so loud that I had to match her volume so she could hear me,

“Look, this is a lesson for you, since you assume cutting people off, and disregarding the 15 items or less rule, and treating the clerk so rudely is your right.  It is not.  This is my Jewel, (thumbs pointing to myself) and you (pointing at her with my hands in gun-mode) are no longer welcome here!”

She snatched her bags and spun on her heels, fuming all the while telling me to fuck off and go to hell and a bunch of other stuff…I nodded with each insult. She was screaming all the way out into the parking lot, everyone watched in silence, mouths agape.

I announced at that point that everyone can continue shopping, the rude lady is gone, and people started clapping and cheering. I thanked everyone for their patience and laughed while shoppers patted me on the back and shook my hand.  This woman’s expectations were being challenged, she was used to preferential treatment, rules did not apply to her.  She did not like being called out, the impression she gave was not a good one…granted I helped with that. She thought she was better than everyone else and when no one sided with her, she became hostile. The outcome for her was not good, hopefully it was memorable. From her perspective, I am sure the negative-valenced communication was high. I kept the frozen broccoli, to the victor belong the spoils of the enemy.