Friday Extra: Cherry Salsa

So one Friday afternoon I was at the grocery store.  I was in a bad mood.  The store was pretty crowded and I was getting more agitated by the minute.  I just wanted to get the few things I needed for a little party we were having and get out of there. 

Whenever we are having a party, we never quite seem to get everything ready to our satisfaction.  Mostly it has to do with getting the house in order.  But also, no matter how much we plan it out, there are always emergency trips to Hy-Vee.  I will typically return with the last thing we need, green onions for example, only to be informed that we need Tumeric powder.  Handing over the Tumeric powder, I find that we’ve completely forgotten to grab the Heavy Cream.  And so on.

So anyway, It was on one of these return trips with a grocery store full of people with what appeared to be “all the time in the world” that I began to get very impatient.  Biting my tongue at every turn.

I turned down the Chips and snacks aisle for the last thing I needed (on this trip).  A jar of medium salsa.  Just before I got to the salsa section, an older couple and their teenage daughter got there.  They were blocking my access to what I needed.  I could see it.  All I could do is wait while they discussed what they were there for.  I was trying to breathe slowly and deeply.

As they were having “the longest conversation in the world” about what kind of salsa they were going to get, I noticed the girl had Down Syndrome.  They were talking about a certain brand of cherry salsa that was so wonderful, they just had to have more.  But no matter how they searched, they couldn’t find it.  They were sure they had gotten it here at this store.  Maybe this store didn’t carry it anymore.  Well.  Keep looking, they decided.

This whole time, I was glaring at the thing they were looking for.  It was on the top row of the salsa display.  I somehow felt that if I stared at it, they would find it.  On about their third scan of all the jars of salsa starting mysteriously with the second from the top row, I spoke up.

“It’s right there,” I said, pointing it out to them.

At that point, the little girl was so excited to have found it, she turned to me and said, “You’re awesome!”

I felt like I had just won a prize.  An asshole prize.  I only told them where it was because I wanted them to get the hell out of my way.  If I hadn’t been in a hurry, or didn’t need to get to where they were, I would have let them look for it forever. 

Seeing that girl’s face light up for something so small and simple – her expression of gratitude – changed my day.  I wasn’t grumpy anymore.  Everything that had been causing my impatience was so unimportant, I had to laugh. 

I bought a jar of cherry salsa.  Not so much.  Didn’t really care for it.  But it was still a good day.

A couple of weeks ago, Shim was looking for volunteers for the Bellevue/Papillion crits.  Once I finally committed, he responded by email with: “You’re awesome!”

In the same way as in the grocery store, I hadn’t really done anything.  Much less than people like Shim and Kent who try to get these things going and make them successful.

So Shim’s email reminded me of that day I stopped being an asshole for a minute at the grocery store.  That’s why I call Shim (in my mind) Cherry Salsa.