I think that when God was putting me together in the womb, he decided to leave out the athletic prowse but give me an extra helping of patience. When I say helping, I mean a dump-truck full! He occasionally tests it out for me to make sure his intial investment has stood the test of time.
So today the girls and I go to Wal-Mart to purchase some “after Christmas, half-price” Stetson aftershave and cologne. I dig it. Not alot of people do, but it’s one of my things… especially at such a low-low cost. I stock up for the whole year.
So we go to check out after I proudly strutted through the store with my armful of gift Stetson, and there’s an elderly woman in one of the motorized carts in front of me. I only had a few items, but I thought to myself… “No big deal man… the little cart on that hot-rod doesn’t hold a bunch of stuff… you can wait for this sweet lady to finish her shopping.” I even motioned to Dawn to see if the lady needed any help, and she told Dawn she was fine. Dawn and I smiled.
She then proceeded to take each individual item out of the cart and had another store ad for everything… EVERYTHING!!!! The checker had to do a price change on everything she scanned. By the time we got three items into the experience, I looked behind me and there were about 10-15 people in line. The guy directly behind me shot a nervous smile at me. I jokingly said, “I’m not going to give her any trouble, because I know that’s going to be me someday.” We giggled.
So the checker managed to get through everything in her cart, which suprisingly does hold a lot, and I thought… “Okay Kenny… the ole patience has held out pretty well. Good job man!” And then the lady reached in her purse and pulled out coupons for EVERYTHING SHE HAD JUST PURCHASED!!! One by one, the coupons were scanned. Some coupons were contested but eventually fell in the lady’s favor. She had a few that needed to be verified by printing out an extra receipt that the checker could scan through because by now, even she forgot what the nice, beloved lady in the motorized cart had purchased. By now another lane had opened up and most of our line had filtered there, but this other fellow and I had ridden this ride for 15 minutes already, and we weren’t going to give up that easy!
Another checker came over to help get the lady’s purchased items back into the motorized cart as she began to pay for her items. All-in-all, she saved over $20 with her dilligent search for competitor ads and coupons, so I say good for her. (Jacquie Oermann would be so proud!) As the checker was finalizing the purchase, I noticed that the older lady was pulling off countless plastic bags from the checkout turnstyle and stuffing them into the cart while the checker wasn’t paying attention. She pulled so hard once that a whole section of bags came off, so she stuffed those in her cart too.
Now it probably would have been real easy to complain, roll my eyes or change lanes like the other pansies did… but not good ole patient Ken! I just smiled to myself and thought… “Oh yeah, this is going in the blog!”
I can’t wait to be old someday and do this myself. It looked like a real hoot!
I hate old people, but the older i get the younger old farts get.
I think God has such a wonderful sense of humor! Even as God saw fit to bless you with a dump truck full of patience he also sort of short changed you in the olfactory department. (Stetson? Serioulsy??) Sounds like the old lady got a dump truck full of frugality plus a tablespoon or so of downright thievery (stealing bags?! lmbo) And then there’s me: overflowing with cynicism and sarcasm with a sprinkling of tenderness that shows up on occasion (usually when I’m watching Hallmark movies).