Not rude but taking them out at the register would be polite.

Anonymous wrote:I was in a grocery store in a younger/cooler part of town this weekend and everyone was on their airbuds while grocery shopping. I thought it was really strange and somewhat anti-social, probably because it would weird me out about my own situational awareness to not be able to hear/sense what was going on around me, but I certainly wouldn't have accosted someone about it. Another signal that I'm getting old...

Most of them probably had them on transparent mode.

Busybody is a much better term than Karen, since it describes the annoying activity.

Anonymous wrote:There is no problem. It was just some Karen with a weird obsession. You're fine, OP.

Wearing earbuds in the grocery store isn’t rude. Calling someone “Karen” to complain about their behavior is. OP gave no indication that the busybody was named Karen, and odds are, she isn’t. In fact, the odds aren’t any greater that her name was Karen, than that the OP is named Karen. While this is admittedly a remote chance, if OP’s name should, in fact, be Karen, you will have compounded the rudeness inflicted upon her.

The other lady was rude.

I'm a woman in my early 60s and also wear my AirPods to make grocery shopping bearable. I would be highly annoyed if the Karen that scolded you for wearing your AirPods in the store had approached me with the same nonsense. I can understand if you were an employee (I believe most grocery store staff are told not to wear AirPods and the like), but you were just an ordinary shopper. Karen was wrong. You were not rude--she was.

I was in a grocery store in a younger/cooler part of town this weekend and everyone was on their airbuds while grocery shopping. I thought it was really strange and somewhat anti-social, probably because it would weird me out about my own situational awareness to not be able to hear/sense what was going on around me, but I certainly wouldn't have accosted someone about it. Another signal that I'm getting old...

I take them out to check out, as I think that's the only time it's rude to have earbuds in my ears.

There is no problem. It was just some Karen with a weird obsession. You're fine, OP.

It’s fine to wear AirPods in the grocery store.

I sense nothing weird about OP.

She's an a$$hole for doing that. You don't owe anyone in the grocery store your attention except for when you get to the checkout line at which point remove them.

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like you encountered someone as weird as you are in the store.

Haha, people are rarely weirder than I am.

But I tend to keep my weirdness to myself.

Sounds like you encountered someone as weird as you are in the store.

I always wear my AirPods while grocery shopping. I usually listen to an audiobook or a podcast with the volume low enough where I can hear what’s going on around me.

It makes grocery shopping so much more bearable. I tend to go early weekday mornings anyways when stores aren’t too crowded.

I had an older woman (60s? 70s?) come up behind me with a “Ma’am”, “Ma’am” and then tape me on my shoulders. It startled me. I could hear her near me but didn’t expect her to get so close and then touch me.

I turned around and tapped my ear so the sound would pause and all she did was tell me it was rude of me to wear headphones in public because “someone could be trying to talk to you.”

I’ve never had an issue hearing anyone trying to get my attention. I also don’t know why it’s so important for someone to talk to me?

I just kind of smiled and said, “oh, I can hear you”. And she repeated that it was rude to wear headphones around other people.

I assume she was just a busy body. Possibly a tad unstable?

Do you consider that rude? I don’t. I think it’s rude to listen to music loudly or have loud conversations but I don’t get upset when people have headphones out in public. I don’t really feel entitled to have anyone speak to me.