These very wise words are spoken by none other than Mr. Slinger (Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse by Kevin Henkes). This is my mantra for when I'm having a bad day. My mantra used to be "I'm moving to Australia" a la Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day but I decided a few months ago that Mr. Slinger's words gave a more positive spin to a negative concept.
Today was definitely a difficult day. I always find it amazing how one wakes up in a happy state and one little thing can mar that happiness, creating a snowball effect and painting the color for the rest of the day. No matter what I do to try to wipe away the negativity, it just doesn't seem to go. In fact, if anything, it just grows larger.
The saying "misery loves company" is so true, because when I'm having a bad day I find that my grumpiness tries to attach to anything that comes within 5 feet of me. Am I not enough for this grumpiness? Why does it need more? When I feel that happening, I try to smile more at fellow shoppers but deep down, all I want to do is ram my shopping cart into theirs. The experience I had at the grocery store today certainly didn't do anything to improve my mood.
The store wasn't that crowded, which is always a plus and I found everything on my list in record time. That always makes for a good trip. As I was getting ready to walk down an aisle, a woman started walking towards me, backwards. Backwards? Really? I could see she was going to hit my cart so I loudly said, "Excuse me!" and she, of course, walked right into my cart.
"Oh, I'm sorry!," popped out of my mouth, though I knew I wasn't at fault. I received a dirty look in return. I could tell this was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad shopping trip. I got in line to pay and thought, "Oh, good! It won't be too long, since it looks like she's almost finished!"
As the cashier finished ringing the woman in front of me, the woman handed her a bunch of coupons (all for the same product) and said, "I left my wallet in the car. I'll be right back."
She came back about 5 minutes later, just as the cashier was telling me she was going to hold the other woman's sale to take me. She handed the cashier another pile of coupons, for the same product. The cashier tried to ring in coupon and it wouldn't take.
"I'm sorry, Ma'am, but this isn't the right product," the cashier explained to Coupon Lady.
"Yes it is," Coupon Lady argued back. "The picture doesn't have to match."
After a few times going back and forth, a manager was brought in. Now, when I was venting about this to The Doctor, he mentioned I could have gone to a different lane. I would have had I known it was going to take forever. I chose not too, really out of sheer laziness. I did not feel like loading everything back into my cart to schlep it over to another lane, where I'd have to wait again.
After about 15 minutes, Coupon Lady was finally satisfied and took her 50 containers of toothpaste and left. While I talked about my annoyance at the matter on Facebook, I was cool and calm in the store and the manager turned to me and said, "I am so sorry about that. I never expected that to take as long as it did. I'm going to give you $5 off because you had to wait so long."
I might not have gotten 50 toothpastes for $16, but being rewarded for my patience was just as good! Sadly, though, it wasn't good enough to shake the grumps. I know I wasn't pleasant to be around this afternoon and I must remember to apologize to The Doctor and The Curly Girlies for that. They kept trying to give me tips to shake the bad mood ("Will a hug make you feel better?", "Mommy, you should go into the bathroom and yell into the toilet, then flush it. That'll work!", "Do the Hokey Pokey, Mommy!"). The very sad thing is, I didn't want to feel better. I guess sometimes, when you're having a bad day, you just have to allow yourself to feel it and know that tomorrow will be better.
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