Endurance

Dear You,

The cashier at the supermarket wore a wrist guard for her carpal tunnel injury and had a long story to tell the customer just ahead of me. The customer waved her checkbook around, along with a plastic gift card, and her groceries were piled high and chaotically on the belt, which in turn barely moved forward. The clerk was new at the job, and since the customer had not taken the time to weigh her own produce and affix the little barcodes to the plastic baggies, each of those had to be looked up on the card near the machine, then weighed.

I always weigh my produce. In addition I group my groceries and put their barcodes down or facing forward as I remove them from the cart onto the belt. This makes the process go so much faster, you see. It's because everything in my life in recent years has been going faster. I use a faster computer with high-speed broadband. I carry a cellphone so I can talk to anyone I want as soon as I wish. I pay for things with my credit card -- no time to give and receive change.

In the next ten minutes the cashier and customer were buddies. "I was nicknamed 'Pokey' when I was a little girl," gushed the shopper when the clerk apologized . . . again . . . for going so slow. ("Ahh," I thought. "Soulmates.") I helpfully waved off the next two customers who tried to join me in line and watched them leave the store as the belt ground slowly forward enough for me to add my things -- barcodes down and/or forward, naturally. My breathing slowed, and I looked through a tabloid to see why She-Moviestar was angry enough to divorce He-Moviestar and who was about to give birth to an alien baby. In short, I found myself seeking some peace in this busy world. Then I turned over my shopping list and wrote this short essay.

Now I'm sitting here, madly typing before tackling the next three items on my ToDo list that sits on my desk.