I'm annoyed. I had an "interaction" with a woman today at the grocery store that was less than pleasant. After grocery shopping, Hudson and I headed up front to check out. I was told by an employee to go in the 10 items or less line even though I had more items (maybe 15 or so). Hudson helped me unload our stuff on to the belt and after standing there for approximately a minute, I was tapped on the shoulder by a middle aged woman with only a couple of items in her hand. I turned and said "Yes ma'am?" (When I saw she only had a couple of items, my first thought was to let her go ahead of me, but I didn't have time to ask because it quickly went downhill from there). She looked me straight in the eye and said "Do you plan on raising your son to follow rules and do as he should?" Not having ANY idea what we were talking about, I stared at her and said "Excuse me?" She proceeded to tell me that I was in the 10 items or less line and I obviously had more items than that. At this point, I heard a voice in my head, plain as day, that said "Be like Christ." I kindly told her that the gentleman that worked there told me to go to that line. She said "I will certainly speak with him about that, but you still should know better than getting in that line." I stood there for a second and said "Ma'am, if this is the worse thing that has happened in your life, you should be grateful." She wriggled her finger at me and said "Don't you jump all over me about this!" With which I responded "Ma'am, you are the one that came up to me to ask what I was doing in this line!" She made another comment under her breath and headed to "speak" with the employee that sent me to that line.
I turned around to a very sweet cashier that told me not to worry about it. There was a woman paying ahead of me and told me that I was a lot calmer than she would've been in that situation. The more I stood there and thought about what just happened, the angrier I got. It would've been one thing to say I shouldn't be in that line, but when she began with the decisions I'm making on how I am raising my child, it lit a fire under this momma bear. I've been fuming about it all day and thinking about how she was so out of line to go after my "mothering" skills. In this season of my life, I question my decisions about how I raise my children EVERY DAY.
We don't know the person in front of us in line. We don't know what is going on in their lives. They could have just come from signing divorce papers or a bad doctor's appointment. They could have just gotten some bad news over the phone or just had to discipline their kids because they were acting up. This lady certainly didn't know me or anything about my son.
As the day wore on, I went over and over what happened. I don't understand why she couldn't have given me the benefit of the doubt and could've just been nice to me! Just a little understanding is all I'm asking for here!
As I was beginning to walk out of the checkout line, the lady passed me again and said "My apologies to you. I spoke to the young man and he still shouldn't have sent you to that line, but my apologies to you." I told her I appreciated it and then as she walked away I said not too quietly to myself "I don't think she meant that." But I don't know that lady and I don't know what kind of day she's had. Maybe she's going through some things or maybe she's just plain crabby. If I had it to do all over again, I wouldn't have been ugly to her. Actually, maybe all SHE needed was a little understanding. So instead of making this about how badly I was treated, I need to think about how I treated her. Was I like Christ? Nope, don't think so. I called her Ma'am and didn't raise my voice... but the words that I said to her were not loving or kind. As I said starting out saying in the beginning of this post, I'm annoyed. But not with her as with myself. Lesson learned. If I am ever in a similar situation, I will hopefully be able to reference what I have gleaned from this and handle it as I should.
John 13:34-35
