No point mentioning the name but as I've said here before, the grocery store across the street must have the most agonizingly slow service of any retail establishment on the planet.
No kidding, it's just that bad.
Most every time, it takes longer to get through the checkout line and pay the cashier than it does to walk to the store and back from my boat. The problem isn't the cashiers: it's the customers.
It's the customers who've forgotten they'll have to pay for their groceries and then spend fifteen minutes counting change from their pockets or purses to find the exact amount down to the penny.
It's the customers who need 10 minutes figuring out how to swipe their debit card through the machine, and then can't remember their PIN.
It's the customers who think it's cute teaching their 18-month old how to punch in the PIN.
It's the customers who want to pay using an out of town third-party check, without having any form of ID
It's the customers trying to pay with expired coupons who argue with the cashier for five minutes and then insist on talking to the manager.
It's the customers who don't like the way their groceries were bagged and so must remove, re-sort and re-bag each item three more times while exchanging recipes with the cashier.
Seems like everybody's in a hell-bent hurry, at least until it's
their turn to pay and get out of the store.
The President doesn't seem in much of a hurry to appoint me to the cabinet as his Supermarket Checkout Czar, either. So until then I try not to worry too much about it.
But sometimes it's a struggle.
--
As I was climbing into bed last night I started thinking about how much hurrying and impatience has become part of our lives. We expect, no ... we
demand that the time we spend waiting be kept to an absolute minimum
because we're in a hurry and can't wait to get going so we can start standing in the next line for the next thing.There's an old saying, "Where do you keep all the time you've been saving?"
It made me wonder whether, after spending 40 days fasting in the desert, Jesus had gone running into town for a meal and then complained about the service taking too long.
It made me think about John 11 and why Jesus didn't rush back to Bethany to heal his sick friend Lazarus.
It made me think about Christ on the road to Golgotha, carrying his cross to the place where he'd be crucified, and how much of a hurry he'd been in to get there.
Jesus didn't make his own schedules or set his own deadlines. As in all things, Christ was following
God's will.
Funny how we'll be in a desperate hurry and become irate ... to the point of compromising our witness ... when the goal is
nothing more important than satisfying ourselves in the moment ... getting our food, getting to our destination, getting our turn in line and getting the
thing we want ... soon as we feel something or someone else is preventing us from getting what we want, when we want it.
It's even stranger that I've never seen anybody get impatient or start yelling because they're in a hurry to make time to thank God for all the blessings they've already received.
