I was in my local Costco warehouse getting a few things - I avoid getting a shopping cart when I can hold them in my hands, which in itself is countercultural, keeping me focused on just what's on the shopping list - and in line with others at a checkout register stand. Probably a good two thirds of the registers were manned by the employees. . . a typically busy Friday.
The checkout lines were on the long side, and I knew that in time another register would open up in all likelihood. I was right. . . one did to the right of me and the woman ahead of me, who had a cart. We were asked to move to the newly open checkout stand by the clerk, Patty S., and we proceeded to do so in an orderly fashion.
This did not suit one Costco member with a cart that insisted on having their own way, however. This particular woman aggressively barged right in to take the first spot in line in front of us at this newly opened checkout stand. I sighed. . . and then. . .
"Ma'am, I asked the woman in back of you to come over to my register. Please allow her to be served and get in back of the gentleman in back of her,"
Patty S. crisply, but unemotionally stated. Patty looked directly at her eyes to communicate "I'm not going to check you out until I get the woman I asked to come over to me checked out, and the man behind her." She never flinched. What courage! What chutzpah! She never took her eyes off the offender of the store's protocol. . . and the opportunistic woman backed down after several tenuous seconds of debating in her mind if she, in fact, could get away with it.
I thanked Patty S. in person as she checked me out. I also took the time to let the front end staffers - the people who supervise the checkstand clerks - know just how "by the book" and "old school" this particular action by Patty S. was. So old, rare and ancient an act, it actually made me think I was transported back into the days of my youth! I was, of course, enraptured at the proper and gutsy treatment Patty gave the offending woman. I still am as I'm writing this.
My encouragement to this retail establishment, Costco, is simply this: be consistent. Have all clerks do this kind of action in the face of such rudeness as what was on display from the offending woman Costco member. Over time, and with such united resolve, I believe it is possible to get the general membership of such a place as Costco to change their behavior to one that is less pushy, less shoving and demanding, and frankly, more safe in the physical sense.
You see, I have a balance problem due to a neurological difference I've had all my life - but was only finally correctly diagnosed in my later adulthood - which makes it difficult for me to keep standing up. I'm easily knocked down, compared to others. So from that vantage point, following proper and safe procedures such as the ones Patty S. followed that day reassure me that as I move about, I'm not going to be physically run into by shovers that put me off balance, causing me to fall. . . and quite possibly, get injured. So major kudos to Patty S. and Costco! Well earned and deserved praise.
Then, at my next stop at my regular grocery store, Winco, I encountered a young mother trying to get her young recalcitrant son to get in the shopping cart. . . due to his running around without regard to other shoppers' safety or need to select their own grocery items in an unencumbered manner. I see far too many kids running around without regard to other shoppers and causing a safety hazard at this store, much less reducing the kindness of allowing each shopper to find their own items hassle free.
"Son, did you hear your own mother?" I asked the boy. He looked at me quizzically as If I were a space alien from some distant planet.
"Well, did you?" I repeated to him.
He dutifully climbed in the shopping cart his mom was using.
"See, mom!" I chirped back to the now happy mother. "There's folks who care about your kids here. I'm old enough to be his grandfather. Since his dad isn't here, I took his place. Hope you don't mind. . . "
She smiled and expressed her thanks. Another moment of bliss on this present Earth.
* * *
I found a YouTube video clip that expresses what doing the right thing with character and integrity does to others around you and can even change the culture, if done consistently and often enough. Here 'tis:
From 1 Corinthians 13 (ESV):
4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;[b] 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Patient. . . kind. . . not arrogant or rude. . . not insisting on its own way. . . not irritable or resentful. Such a world. . . and the World to Come, wherein dwells righteousness! Ahhh. . . (smile)
Selah.
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