Conjunctions

The Paper Shop

I went into our local paper shop yesterday to pick up the Saturday paper and a bag of sweets for my Dad. There was one lady serving on the counter and she was busy dealing with the person in front of me who was fussing and taking a bit of a while.

Then a couple, not young, came and stood next to me waiting to be served as well. At this point, a young assistant came to help out the one serving lady and said, “Who’s next?” The man next to me grunted at (presumably) his wife and pointed at the young assistant and she stepped forward and got served.

This scenario describes one of my “pet hates”.

I was queuing, and they were queuing. Unless they were blind or thicker than two of the thickest short planks, it was obvious who was further up the queue!

Now we Brits are polite but one of the conditions of that politeness is that a sense of fair play, a level playing field, playing with a straight bat, is demanded from others. For me - when others ignore this – and “Mr & Mrs Grunter” clearly ignored this – it triggers a series of conditioned responses. These responses go back a long way, and are mixed with even earlier childhood conditioned responses! The net result is a behavioural streak that is way out of character.

Anyway - yesterday, I noticed this sequence building so I just took a deep breath, examined Mr & Mrs Grunter with a benign, yet still piercing, gaze, and remained in silence waiting to be served. The link between thoughts and tongue had been severed!

The Gifts

After dealing with Mr & Mrs Grunter the young assistant melted back into the shadows, and I was served by the lady I’d seen when originally waiting in the queue. She was a joy – chatty, chirpy, and there was clearly more for her in her job than just taking money off people.

When I’d got my change I turned and moved towards the door. Outside was an elderly lady with a walking stick, a bit wobbly on her ‘pins’, negotiating with herself and accoutrements as she approached the door to come into the shop. I held the door open for her. Her face lit up into a warm smile of appreciation.
“Oh,” she said. “Thank you so much – I’m not usually so lucky – I usually have to manage on my own!”
“You’re very welcome,” I said and after she’d entered the shop I duly stepped out into the street.

How fascinating, I thought. We’ve just exchanged gifts – me holding a door, and her giving a smile.

The thing is – we’d both had additional and unseen gifts from my facilitating a cosmic conjunction.

Allowing random order

I could have acted to placate my rising hackles by barking at Mr & Mrs Grunter, and then taken their place in the serving queue – especially as it was rightfully mine!

I would have then left the shop before them and totally missed meeting the elderly lady. Instead, SHE would have met Mr & Mrs Grunter – probably irate at being “ordered about” by me! They wouldn’t have held the door open for her, but merely barged past her as she – politely – waited for them to go through the door.

No gifts were exchanged by any of the parties involved in this, alternative, little piece of conjunctive drama.

Now which was best for ME – to rightfully stand up for myself, or to chat with the serving lady and meet and hold the door for the elderly lady with the stick and the warm smile?
Bit of a no-brainer really ...

And yet by allowing “random order” to play out, and by being aware of the collective part we all play in the lives of each other (yes even those we don’t know) the day, yesterday, of at least four people was improved by the severing of the link between my thoughts and my tongue.

Retribution

So does fairness get played out at a higher level?
Do the Grunters ‘get theirs’ elsewhere for their display of opportunistic selfishness in the paper shop? Do they get dealt some ‘darker’ circumstantial cards of life as it unfolds?

For some these might be important questions – and for some there would be an almost compulsive ‘need to know’ pertaining to those outcomes.

The thing is – once we engage with the cosmic scheme of things, then we can become comfortable in the knowledge that this will be so. It probably won’t be of any significance to us though, so paying no heed is the best way to be.

In a fit of pique I may have wanted some ‘payback’ for the Grunters, but it would have been my kind of payback – a payback on my terms. However, for the payback to really work – it is best that I don’t do the choosing.

The cosmic payback would always be better – one fashioned both by and for the Grunters!
Isn’t it SO much better that they be hoisted by their own petards, than I be hoisted by my own 'pet hates'?


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