Karma Reserves

Do you ever feel like you are stock piling karma?  I do.  I feel that way every time I go to the grocery store.

Going to the grocery store is one of my least favorite chores.  It would probably not be so bad if we planned a menu and shopped all at once for a whole week at a time.  But more often than not, 5:30 rolls around and I get a call from the hubs...it goes like this:

DH: Hey Babe, what do you want for dinner tonight?
Me: I dunno, what do you think?  What do we have?
DH: I'm not sure we have anything.  What sounds good?
Me: I dunno, why don't you pick tonight?
DH: Do we need to go to the store?
Me: Oh, probably (sigh).
DH: Should I go or would you mind swinging by on your way home?
Me:  Doesn't matter.  I guess I can, but what do you want?
... 

And the conversation continues in that manner. So, one reason I dislike going to the grocery store is because I never really know what I am there to get.  I am a list-maker generally, but grocery lists are not my forte.  Also, I am at the grocery store entirely too often.  I know all the checkers.  And now, some of them know me a little too well.  (You can read what I mean at the end of this old post). 

Today, while at the grocery store, I realized there are a few other reasons why I'm not so fond of it...

I have an uncanny knack for picking the slowest line.  I mean, I always go for what looks like the shortest, but inevitably end up behind somebody with 50-bajillion coupons that grabbed the wrong ketchup who has to do multiple transactions and write checks.  Meanwhile, the checker runs out of receipt tape and keyed in the lettuce wrong (according to coupon lady).  I watch as people breeze through other lines and envision myself out the door already if I had just chosen THAT line! 

But...I wait it out...and very patiently I might add.  Because if there is anything worse than being behind coupon lady...it's being behind the person who just can't stand being behind coupon lady and gets all uppity and acts like the world is crashing down around them. 

So, like I said, I wait patiently for my turn...and stock pile some karma.  And when the checker says, "Sorry about that," I reply, "No worries; I don't mind waiting" because honestly it isn't any trouble...a mild inconvenience.  Saying I don't mind waiting might not be entirely honest.  Not many people like waiting...but when I say I don't mind it is more of an admission that I know waiting is part of living.  And in life, things are often worth the wait.  Perhaps the grocery store doesn't fall under this umbrella...I'm thinking like a fancy dinner or an amusement park ride or a baby or something like that.

Anyway, when I finally get out of the store and make my way to the car, 2 out of 5 times there is a cart abandoned nearby.  And I ALWAYS take it back to the cart return...stock piling my karma, you know.  Once, when it was 4 degrees outside I hopped in my car and thought, "Screw it.  That cart is not my problem."  But then I felt so guilty I got out of the car and returned it.  It was in a good parking spot and leaving it there meant someone else would have to walk further in 4 degree weather to get inside because of a wayward cart.

That maybe sounded a bit like tooting my own horn...but I think I am a nice person.  And a patient person.  And I think I have stocked up enough karma for something awesome to happen.  So...hopefully it does.