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It’s the Damn Christmas Season, So Be Nice

So I was in a hurry today and I needed to get my life insurance premium paid and I ran into the Farm Bureau office and I flashed a smile at the clerk behind the desk and shoved the check into her hands and whirled to the door, and she said to me, “It’s nice to see you again,” at which point I was already halfway through the parking lot.

So I did my errands, and I went back.

I hate doing this. It makes me feel like a fool. But the clerk had been extraordinarily nice to me and, besides, the reason I was so harried was because I was trying to get things done for the damn Christmas season!

Can you tell that returning to the scene of my error irritates the fire out of me?

I learned to endure this embarrassing humility during the eight years I facilitated the Door of Hope Writing Group. I knew so little about what I was doing, and I so often messed up, only to realize my mistake when I was in the parking lot, my hand on the car door handle. It was very important to me to get it right, and so I tucked my tail between my legs and went back inside to do it over again, or apologize, or set it straight.

Of course, the feelings of the Farm Bureau clerk didn’t matter that much, right?

I don’t give a rat’s ass whether she thought it was important or not. (See? Irritated.) It was important to me.

Plus, I figured if I didn’t go back and say something to her then I would be at the intersection of Poplar and Walnut Grove at the very time a car came barreling through the red light, and it would flatten me, all because I had acted like an asshole.

When I stood in front of her again and apologized for my earlier rudeness, she said, “No worries.”

She said, “It’s really good to see you again.”

The clerk at the desk beside her laughed.

She said, “Merry Christmas.”

It’s all good.

I hate nutcrackers

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