What is it with people who offer free samples at the store.

Sometimes it's some little old lady who leaves you alone as you walk by, but sometimes it's a guy who has to be like the Richard Pryor of handing out small cups of Snapple, all making the hardest sell in the world, like you wronged him in another life and his only vengeance will be if you try his stuff.

Today I was simply trying to buy some of that frozen ratatouille at the new Trader Joe's, and there was this fool inside, sitting at a card table, handing out samples of some kind of new cracker. I don't know why, but he decided he was going to latch onto me like a dog to an ankle. He called out to me as I walked by, and I politely nodded and moved on. He started calling after me, "No, really! Try some!" "It'll change your life!" "You'll be sorry!" Then when I had gotten down by the corner he started to lay into me at the top of his voice, to all those in attendance.

"Looks like that guy doesn't like crackers!" and "Oh well, can't please 'em all, I guess!"

I was burning red at this point. For this bastard to impugn me publicly in the name of selling crackers was too much. It was all I could do not to pick a bottle of Tejava off the shelf and crush it in my hand. Instead, however, I calmly paced to the manager's office, told him of the offense, and left without buying anything. I waited out in the bushes for a while, to see the son of a bitch escorted off the premises, but I guess the manager made him leave out of the back entrance. I hope that rat dies penniless and diseased with his skull crushed under a rock.