I am pleased as punch to report that the September/October issue of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine features "Was That So Hard?" my 45th story there. And since my first appearance in that august journal was in 1981 I can boast an average of exactly one story a year. (We won't discuss how many years I submitted stories there before they bought one.)
The idea for this story came from Not Always Right, a website I have mentioned before. People anonymously submit reports on horrible customers. I enjoy the site so much I use it as a reward: I won't touch it until I have written my quota for the day. It is a huge time sink but I have pulled three short stories out of it.
"Shanks Has Reservations" (Black Cat Weekly #158) was inspired by a genuine scam that happened in a hotel. "Shanks Gets Lost" came from many tales of customers being rude to fast food clerks. (Black Cat #193)
And now "Was That So Hard?" was inspired by many reports on rude customers, mostly in grocery stores. (The title is something an entitled customer says, or more likely sneers, after some underpaid employee goes miles out of their way to be helpful.) My protagonist is in charge of a high-end grocery store which, just before closing time, is invaded by a mob of the rudest, most entitled customers you could dream up. Naturally there is a crime involved.
Finally, I want to examine a word I have used twice in this little piece: entitled. When did it change its meaning? It used to mean that someone has the right to do something. Now I hear it more often being used to mean that someone feels they have that right.
I checked Oxford English Dictionary and found that they traced that meaning back to Robert Coles' Privileged Ones, published in 1977.
It is a matter of feeling 'entitled.' A child who has been told repeatedly that all he or she needs to do is try hard does not feel inclined to allow himself or herself much skeptical self-examination.
