It was almost noon on a Saturday morning as the red #22 racecar shopping cart whizzed its way between the aisles of the local H.E.B. grocery store.  In the booster seat was perched a five year old boy enjoying the ride.  “Go faster! Go faster!” coaxed the co-pilot.

At the helm of the rickety-wheeled trolley was a middle aged man who appeared to be enjoying his grocery jaunt very little.  After all, it had already been a hectic morning, complete with a a broken toaster at breakfast, baseball pants put on backwards, an early baseball game, team picture chaos, crying siblings, a muddy parking lot, and worst of all, a left-behind drink for his boy, which, from all appearances, would cause the boy to die of thirst, and the father to win the Worst Dad of the Year Award.

Alas, The Mommy had been away on business, so the man was in charge of the kids on this day.  Bugaboos aside, the man was nearly finished with the weekly shopping and had handled everything fairly well.  

That is until the #22 cart got to aisle 3.  

As the man made the turn onto the familiar aisle 3, he zeroed in instantly on his item:  the cranberry juice.  With one eye on the juice, one eye on the 5-year old, and one eye on the other shoppers, everything was getting about 2/3 attention.  As he grabbed for the juice, two giant bottles were knocked to the floor – splluurrrshhh – glub-glub - all over the man, the floor, and the entire aisle. Had there been ants on the floor, they might have felt like Pharaoh’s army being engulfed by the Red Sea.  It was an awesome spill.

For a moment, as he watched the accident unfold, the man was proud of his patience.  In the past, he would have cussed himself, cussed the spewing mess, and then cussed his destiny as Life’s Ragdoll of Difficult Things Always Happening To Me.  

Instead, he was somehow able to take a deep breath and ask himself with a smile, “Man!  How did that happen?”  

The man didn’t know he was about to get a response.  As he looked around to see who else might be affected by the spill, he saw only one other person –  a man in his mid 60s driving one of those sit down, wheel-powered chair carts with the basket in front. 

The man did not look happy.

“Sssprobly because you weren’t paying attention with that PHONE THING in your ear,” he growled.

It took only a moment to realize that the old dog was referring to the Blue Tooth (wireless ear piece) in his ear, which he had completely forgotten was there.  This shot the younger man’s temper from Defcon 5 to Defcon 1 in a heartbeat.  The war was on.

“SIR, I wouldn’t go there with me right now,”  he volleyed back in an elevated tone.   All vestiges of his pride in his patience were gone.

“Well mumble mumble mumble you just weren’t paying attention blah blah blah on the phone,” was all that was heard of the Chair Cart Man’s reply.  

The Daddy had suddenly become deaf with mental calculation, thinking all of these simultaneously:  (1) “You moron.  I wasn’t even on the freaking phone,” (2) “You hate technology because you just don’t get it,” (3) “Listen, Grandpa, the very <bleeping> PURPOSE of  a Blue Tooth is that it allows more dexterity and “attention to things” while talking on the phone,” (4) ”You woke up this morning looking to pee into someone’s Cheerios and I’m standing here with a bowl,” (5) “You have no idea what I’ve been through today,” and finally, (6) “You’re a jackass.”

This snarky little 6th item managed a jailbreak into the conversation. 

 ”You’re a jackass,” the cranberry-spilling offender shot back, showing his bubbling anger.  While he was vaguely aware that he should watch his mouth around his 5 year old, he was equally resolute that the poison in the arrow be delivered with potency to its target.

The irreverent response seemed to anger the older man, who continued with a half-intelligible “Summ Vumm darn better watch your vocabulary nerr snerr.”

The reply fell on even deafer ears than before, for the younger man was now engaged in fierce self-defensive thought.  It was as though the man were a thief in his home, wagging a gun, and stealing all of his priciest belongings right in front of him.  His mind raced as his pulse quickened.  The awkwardness was growing so he decided to end it, but not before punctuating his departure with a silent, mouthed farewell:

“Jack . . . ASS.”  

As he walked away toward aisle 4, the young man’s face grew cherry-red.   He realized that he had exemplified the mole hill and the mountain.  He had acted foolishly in front of his 5 year old, who may not have noticed . . . but that was beside the point.  Worst of all, he had belied all of his professional and relational training by showing zero grace and zero ability to handle a fairly simple walkaway situation.

In his embarrassment, he was hoping desperately to not see his opponent 10 times over the next 10 aisles.  Luckily, there was only a brief encounter at the checkout register, where the scooter-bound crank shook his head in disgust as he exited the store.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

LEARNING FROM ANGER

I’ve been writing a lot here lately about slowing down.  If I may reference a post from earlier this month, Elleceleration and the Panic Culture, I had created a list of things we do too fast that we shouldn’t.  I then added some things we can do to practice slowing down, such as:

9.  When you feel attacked (verbally), pause 5 seconds to think before responding

Had I paused for five seconds before responding to Chair Cart Man, I might have saved myself from the spillage of aggravation and regret.  Oh, yes, if you hadn’t figured out that I was the angry young man in the story . . . yes, that was me.  

Maybe hypocrisy is too strong of a word.  At least I’m learning how to learn . . . 

The Download

Still feeling zinged from the episode, I was fortunate enough to download with a good friend later that afternoon.  We discussed a lot, including the insatiable desire we have to defend ourselves when there’s literally nothing to gain by defending.  We agreed that, in retrospect, that it would have been best to WAIT THE DARN 5 SECONDS, respond, “You know, you’re right,” and then place the Blue Tooth in the pocket. 

This is a kind of “humiliation by humility” where you don’t do harm and the other guy MAYBE has second thoughts about his lousy outgoing behavior.

The key learning point for me was, “How do I anticipate the suddenness of the attack, and respond well?”  My friend suggested that this is the heart of mastery.  In other words, you would have to be trained or prepared for such an attack.  Much like an 8th degree black belt in a bar fight, he sees your drunken punch coming in slow motion.  He’s ready.  So how can we be ready?  

I have to admit, I’m a beginner at this (ego defense / waiting before responding).  Just like the black belt in the dojo, preparedness comes from training.  As Dennis Peacocke put it, “Your true character is how you are without thought.” In other words, when you practice enough, the response is natural.

Alas, I don’t have a neatly packaged answer for everyone, but I know we can all prepare better.  We can agree that the Right/Wrong game must defer to the Life game . . . where we must look for Life over Rightness in any relationship, conflict, or situation.  As my friend put it, “we can be right as rain, but bring nothing but death to a relationship.”

Had I begun my Saturday with a look forward to the day’s events, I may have been better prepared for the HEB incident.  If you find yourself dealing with insecurity, control freakism, or anger, try a morning routine to “combat the spillage.”  Involve a mantra, a key relationship, or some simple quiet time to gain your focus.

Again, may you learn from my pain!  And if you see me at H.E.B. spilling on aisle 3, would you mind calling me a jackass to test my progress?

EPILOGUE

As I put the final touches on this post (images, etc.) I heard a spilling, “peeing” sound beyond my laptop view of the living room.  I found that my 1 year old had just poured an entire glass of water onto our oriental rug, apparently continuing his value-destruction experiment of our house.  But guess what?  I laughed!  ”You monkey,” I said, and walked with a laugh toward the laundry room for a towel . . . Practice, practice!