I'm in a hurry
Today on my way home I decided to stop at Target, one of my all-time favorite stores, to pick up some stuff for my friend who is coming in town tonight. Because if she's coming over, there has to be a new movie, margaritas, and chips n' salsa!
I got to the front of the store and almost all the lanes were backed up out past the pop machines, candy, and magazines with other peoples' business splashed across the front. The Target lady in the next aisle (Her real name isn't Judy, but that's what I will call her. She's about 5 feet tall and 60-something. She's my favorite - you know you practically live there when you know the cashiers by name!) over turned on her light, and I walked into her lane behind a lady with two little kids and a cartload of groceries.
I noticed something strange right away when she put all of her groceries on the counter (moving track, thing? I don't know what it's called), and then put a separator and put a bunch of junk food behind the separator, like it wasn't hers. At first I thought she was probably just paying separately. I put my chips, salsa, drink mix, and my new movie on the counter and waited. Her son kept picking at the things behind the separator, cupcakes, cookies, and fun-shaped frozen chicken nuggets that may or may not be real chicken. "Stop!" she kept saying. "I'm in a hurry and we have to be there at 5 and it's 4:58!!"
Judy was scanning the different items, and I love her, but sometimes she isn't the fastest because she loves to talk. She'd comment on every few things, like how delicious the apples were right now. The lady in front of me never once looked up from the credit card machine and never acknowledged Judy's presence. The lady handed her an ad and wanted her to scan it right then, but for some reason it wasn't working on the item she wanted. "Just take it off," the lady said. "It doesn't matter and I'm in a really big hurry."
"Are you sure?" Judy asked. "It will only take me a minute to fix it for you!"
"Yes, just take it off. I don't want it."
By the end of the transaction, Judy gave the lady $3.00 off her total for her "trouble."
The lady then started to walk off and Judy started scanning the items behind the separator, thinking they were mine.
"Those aren't mine," I said. "I think they may be hers. Ma'am? Are these yours?"
She shook her head quickly while still walking away with a quick, "I'm sorry, but I don't need those." And with that, she was gone.
It was a pile of probably ten things. Frozen chicken nuggets. The cupcakes. The cookies. Beef jerkey.
If I had to assume, which I shouldn't, I'd guess she didn't have the guts to tell her kids they couldn't have it and so she put it in the cart, knowing she could just put it off on the cashier. So poor Judy put it all in a bag to be carried back throughout the store to where each item belonged.
"Well, good lord," she said to me with her hands on her hips after having her mouth hang open for a minute. "I should have just given you the discount!" She was laughing, at least.
I finished checking out and talking to Judy, both of us trying to figure out what the heck that lady was doing by leaving a pile of groceries at the checkout after being helped out so much without even a thank you.
When I left, I have to be honest, I was livid. Not only with the lady in front of me, but with so much I have seen over the past few months. People are in such a hurry that it has become okay, for some reason, to treat people beneath them like trash. I am probably even guilty of it. I am so tired of seeing stuff like this. My friends and I were almost run over several times this past weekend by cars that did not have the right of way, but were in too much of a hurry to stop for a few seconds.
Where is our compassion for people? Our love? Our grace? I can guarantee you that at some point in your life, someone was compassionate towards you, or gracious, or loving. We owe it to others to be compassionate, no matter how much money we have or how much power we think we have over those who work lower paying jobs than we do.
I know. This is kind of a hypocritical post, because I had no compassion for the lady in front of me. But that's just it. It's a cycle, I guess and it's time it stopped.
Please, let's love one another instead of ignoring one another and dumping our responsibilities, no matter how small, on one another. You never know who needs your compassion.
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