Can You Not Help Me, Please?

As is my new routine, I began my day hunting for fast growing landscaping hedges. Foiling the overly friendly neighbors with foliage has become an interesting hobby of sorts.

Unfortunately, the proper privacy conifers were unavailable this day, thus I decided to run a simple errand at a local grocery store.

By now, I have somewhat reluctantly accepted the Oregonian way of being greeted by about 6 different strangers in the parking lot --before entering any building at all. As I gave the obligatory nods and hellos to the passers by, I rushed to the entrance.  Normally I expect to be hassled by overly eager-to-please employees inside the store during some point while shopping. But today, they wanted to set a record. Before the automatic door had even shut behind me, the deli lady felt compelled to run over, breathlessly exclaiming: "oh can I help you find something?"

I looked at her somewhat perplexed at her sprint, and stated a casual "no thank you".

To which she replied, "but you looked so confused."

Confused? I knew I was in a store, thank you. Just didn't know which direction to start walking in the very first second I entered, which apparently means I require professional assistance.

But I regress, the grocery store is simply an exhausting experience in friendlyville. 

There is my experience with the slice of cake from the Safeway bakery. Nobody could avoid commenting on my "yummy cake". (It was just a $1.99 slice of crappy cake!!) Not only did the cashier squeal with delight 'how delicious my cake looked', the bagger chimed in, "oh how he wanted that piece of cake! "

At this point, it simply crosses a line. Am I now supposed to give these crazy cake deprived people my confection or what? 

Yet, to me, the ultimate friendliness assault happens at another (I will leave it unnamed) grocery chain. For some reason, their standard check out chit-chat consists of relentlessly asking me: "so what are you up to today??"

And each time I try to muster a smile and say "nothing much". 

But THEY CAN'T let it go. The cashier pursues and pursues--"oh, but you must be dooing something today?? 

At which point I break down, raise my voice and scream: "I am running boring errands!!" Which seems to satisfy them.

My son has stated that he fears going to the store with me, as I have planned a list of bizarre replies to the question of "what are you doing today?" (as I find it intrusive)

They are in no particular order: 

"robbing a bank", "shaving my cat", "picking my nose", and "going to your house". But of course, the last one would probably just get me an invite to dinner. It's all so exhausting.