On most Saturdays I am not obligated to do anything other than mow my yard or “piddle” around the house. One such Saturday I was hauling my trash to throw away. There was a lot of stuff that could only be placed in a “big” dumpster.
It just so happened on that particular day there were two men, each with a truck, also depositing into the “big” dumpsters. It seemed both had already thrown their trash away, but they were in the lot, talking at great length to each other, just exactly in position to block my access to get rid of my own junk.
The longer I sat there in my tattered but faithful truck on this incredibly muggy day, in the hot sun without relief of air conditioning or, I seethed more and more inwardly. I was thinking many wicked thoughts, such as, “If I had the power of a genie I might just blink these two ‘obstacles’ far away to a very unpleasant place.” I never said them, but the words that came to my mind might make a salty sailor blush.
After what seemed an eternity, but was probably only about three to five minutes, the “obstacles” parted ways. One returned to his truck and drove away. The other approached my open window.
He said, “I just wanted to thank you for your patience. People like you are a blessing.”
Proverbs 25:21-22 (KJV) says: “If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink: For thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head, and the LORD shall reward thee.” I was not either of these men’s enemies—I didn’t know them, and I don’t think they knew me. If they could have read the actual thoughts in my mind while I waited on them to move out of my way, I’m sure we would have been enemies. Nevertheless, the “coals of fire” were heaped upon my head, because I was ashamed of having such hard thoughts about a stranger who proved to be so kind.
His kindness made me grateful that I had not honked the horn or yelled at them (even without obscenity) to get out of my way. After all, what did that probably five minutes of waiting cost me, except a little unwarranted inner anger?
Sometimes we are our own worst enemies. It seems I have more opportunities than anyone could imagine to exercise anger in waiting.
Take, for example, a visit to a store. No matter the type—grocery, clothing, (the multiple) five and dime stores which are now more like a five and ten hundred dollar stores. Chances are if you go with me some of the following will happen.
We will get in the shortest checkout line (in those stores which still have actual live cashiers). The person in front of us will only have one item. Unfortunately, something will happen to that person. The item won’t “ring up”. It will “ring up” incorrectly. The register or card reader will malfunction. This will require a manager to come correct the problem. Meanwhile, you will notice that the line we did not get in because it was so long has managed to quickly and efficiently check out five people with huge buggies of merchandise. It seems their smiles as they leave the store are mockeries directed straight to us for our stupidity in trying to take the shortest route of escape.
Occasionally we may be the only customers in the store. No matter—the one item we were going to purchase has the same problem that the person in front of us had in the previous example.
With age comes a certain measure of resignation. We just know there are going to be problems in life. In comparison, the small torture of not being able to get checked out quickly and efficiently are small in comparison to other troubles we could have.
That is reflected in the times that after long waiting for the people in front of us to get their merchandise scanned and paid for, we come up to the frustrated cashier who smiles wearily at us and sincerely says, “I’m so sorry you’ve waited so long. Thank you for your patience.”
These small rewards for our impatient patience make it worthwhile. Imagine having to work eight to ten hours a day as a cashier to have multiple incidences of things not working out well. Think how many people will snarl at the cashier, though nothing that happened was their fault. Much like blaming the waiter/waitress in a restaurant because the food was slow in coming out, and was cold when delivered.
Just yesterday I was in a restaurant with seven of us adults and one baby. Three of us order chicken pot pie. After thirty minutes of waiting for the food, the waitress comes to the table and apologizes that there are only two orders of pot pie available, so one of us will have to order something else. I changed my order to the hamburger steak, asking for it to be well done. The result? My food was the last served, it certainly didn’t burn my tongue, and the portions seemed much smaller than did the abundance of pot pie served to my two tablemates, neither which even offered to change their order. Why couldn’t they have divided those two portions into three? After all, the other two who ordered it were old women who couldn’t hold much anyway!!!!
Ha! Ha! The joke was on the rest of them anyway. Why do you think it took over thirty minutes for our table to receive food? Because they were dining with “Dr. Impatiently Patient”! You can be assured that any table he sits with will have something unusual befall!
Dear Reader, I leave you this writing not only with words of wisdom from my email world, but a personal suggestion—“When shopping, it might be a good idea to take a lightweight folding chair with you in case of an unpredicted long wait in line. When dining out, it might not be a bad idea to take along a small snack to tide you over in case of an unforeseen wait.” If not needed, all is well. If needed, you might just make a statement to a weary world.

It only takes one slow-walking person in the grocery store
to destroy the illusion that I'm a nice person.

It's fine to eat a test grape in the produce section,
but you take one bite of rotisserie chicken and it's,
"Sir, you need to leave!"

I like to make lists.
I also like to leave them laying on the kitchen counter,
and then guess what's on the list when I am at the store.