I'm going to tell you two stories in this blog. Here is the first.
On Super Bowl Sunday, we decided we should grill out, so after church we stopped into the gas station to get an exchange on our propane tank (something I should have done months ago, but I'm lazy). I paid for what should have been a 2 minute transaction and went outside to wait for the lady to get it out of the cage. After about 5 minutes, she comes out and tells me she is going to have to give me a refund because she can't find the key to unlock it. No problem, says me, and I go inside to get refunded.
At the counter, there's a guy trying to cash in a $500 lottery ticket. They explain to him that they can't do it because they don't have that much cash in their registers--store policy prevents it--and this guy flips out. It was a completely classless and stupid overreaction to the situation. It was one of those scenes where if I regret not saying anything in the moment.
He made quite the scene...and irritated me more than the lack of propane exchange did. Then, we went to another gas station to do the exchange and couldn't because this high school girl was the only one in the store and couldn't go outside to do it. My frustration level is growing at this point, but I did a decent job of holding my tongue and left...not trying to be the lottery loser from down the street. At the next store, we got the propane and all well right with the world, but dude's freak out stuck with me.
Second story.
We were at Cracker Barrel on Sunday. The last time we were there was several months ago...an event that has come to be known as 'THE BARRELING' because of how horrific the twins were. We decided to try it again, and they were actually really well behaved, so this blog is not them. Honestly, it's not even about me.
At the next table over, there was a large party of around 10, about half of whom were under age 6. Since I spend most of my life out in public with children in this age range (note the title of this here bloggerooski), I could pretty much emphathize with the father in the family. The objective, for those of you who dont have the joy, is to eat as quick as possible before the kids get antsy and try to singlehandedly destroy the restaurant. And also to keep them entertained enough that they don't try to entertain themselves (which for Jonah and Carrie usually involves a game of who can scream the loudest).
So anyway the people ordered their drinks and when the waitress brought them out, she managed to spill them all over the floor and on the kids. I try to put myself in the dad's place and I'd like to think I would handle it the way he did. He basically just laughed it off and wasn't even remotely upset. In reality, I feel like I would not have reacted so well. I don't think I would have been so understanding.
My prayer, and purpose for this blog (written on my iPhone so probably with odd spacing and auto corrected words) is to serve as a reminder to calm down and don't let life get to me. None of this will matter in 100 years, most of it won't matter in 100 minutes, so why freak out about it.
To the guy at Cracker Barrel, thanks for the reminder. To the guy at Circle K...get a life. :)
