On Patience and Karma

After negotiating my way through the crowded aisles of one of our local grocery stores, I finally make it to the express checkout line, where I wait, somewhat impatiently, for the well-dressed, elderly man in front of me to finish arguing with the cashier as to the total amount of his purchase. He is pointing at the screen, asking about this item, that item, and the coupons he tendered, while the cashier, more patient than I am, is trying to explain it all to him. I glance at his wife standing next to him. She rolls her eyes and shakes her head before looking away.

The man finally opens his wallet and pulls out all of the money inside it. It’s not a small wad of cash, mind you, and I watch as he first licks his fingers and then shuffles through it, counting to himself.  He then lays down each bill, side-by-side. “Twenty, forty, sixty,” he counts aloud, leaving what appears to be as much as my entire bank account which he carefully slides back inside the wallet.

“Fifty dollars,” he says, turning to his wife. He shakes his head and so does she. The cashier makes change and hands the money and the receipt to the older gentleman who immediately begins to compare one to the other. He counts the change, to the penny, and I find my forefinger quietly tapping against my debit card as he now begins to search his pockets, I am assuming, for the wallet he’d just had in his hand a minute ago. He then pulls his keys out of his trousers and lays them on the counter as if they could somehow be hiding the missing wallet. He slides his hand back into his pants pocket… and it’s not there.

“Did you put it in your jacket?” his wife asks. He gives her a stern look but checks the pocket and the wallet’s there. At this point, I’m leaning against the checkout, thinking about the rush-hour traffic that will soon be starting.

Finally, I think to myself, as the cashier asks me how I am doing today. “Good,” I answer, and he rings up my purchase as I watch the older couple shuffle out of the store. I turn back, slide my card, complete the transaction, and I’m off in a rush.

When I get to the car, I throw the bags in the back seat, place the shopping cart in the return, and slide into the driver’s side of the Honda. It’ll be a short trip back to the house since I’ve just avoided rush-hour, no thanks to the older couple, now loading groceries into the car next to mine.

I back into my driveway, park the car, and open the back door for the groceries. Soon the grill will be going and I’ll be drinking a cold beer while I make supper… but uh oh! There’s no beer in the back seat and I swear I remember placing it on the checkout. I take the groceries into the house and empty the bags out onto the table, searching for the receipt to make sure the cashier rang it up, but it’s not in any of the bags. I reach into my pocket, remove my keys, and lay them on the table. I then take out my driver’s license, debit card, and a small amount of change, setting everything next to the keys. I go back into each of my empty pockets, still no receipt.

I think for a minute and decide to go back to the store without it and hope to find the missing beer at the same checkout I’d just come through. Surely, the cashier will remember me, I was just there. So now I’m back in the Honda, wading through rush-hour, and backtracking to the grocery store for the beer I’m no longer sure I actually purchased. And fifteen minutes into what’s normally a five minute trip, I’m pulling into the, now packed, parking lot.

Once inside the store, I head toward the end of the express checkout where I see there’s a different cashier but the bagger is the same young man that loaded my cart earlier. There’s still hope, I think, but he doesn’t notice me yet because I’m working my way, backwards, through a river of customers and shopping carts as the steady stream of patrons make their way toward the exit. “Excuse me, I’m sorry, my bad,” I say as I zigzag back and forth between them. Some are tolerant while others… well, not so much.

Once I make it to the end of the checkout, I notice the beer sitting off to the side, next to the bagger. When I tap him on the shoulder, he turns, recognizes me, and then slides the beer over toward me.

“You forgot to put it in the cart?” I ask with a smile.

“No, I put it in the bottom of the cart,” he answers. “The folks that were in line ahead of you noticed you left it in the parking lot and brought it back to the store.” Rather sheepishly, I say thank you and the young man goes back to bagging groceries.

And then, as I’m leaving the store, I begin to ponder the whole chain of events. Because I was in such a hurry to get on with my all-important life, I failed to truly see the people in line ahead of me. Instead, all I saw was an inconvenience which I allowed to consume me even as I left the beer in the parking lot. I can only wonder if they felt the same way about me when they took the time to return it to the store… regardless, my thanks to both of them for doing it.

Now, and most importantly, did I learn anything here? You bet. In essence, karma had just smacked me, full in the mouth, with a big fat lesson on patience and tolerance. I promise I will try my best to remember it the next time I feel like the rest of the world is inconveniencing me. But honestly, only time will tell.