ATTITUDE IS EVERYTHING

Every day is a new adventure; a new opportunity for experience in whatever comes your way.  With the right attitude you can make fun out of anything.  Right.

I needed a major attitude adjustment after my monthly senior-discount day grocery shopping expedition which is always a challenge but, because of the discount and the chance to exert my independence,  I take pride in the accomplishment.  The squeaking carts, music, conversations, conveyor belts, loud-speaker announcements are annoying to some but can be debilitating for a hearing-impaired person.  The aisle upon aisle of shelves and back-forth up-down movement is dizzying and nauseating for a balance impaired person.  The grocery cart gives me some stability.

My usual store has been doing some remodeling and seasonal shifting of goods so things were not in their normal places.  There was a conveyor belt at one of the check stands that squeaked rhythmically loud enough to be heard throughout the store.  It was not so much the squeak itself but the rhythm of the squeak that threw off my balance even more.

Finally, I was done and got in the shortest check-out line.  There was some confusion and delay with the customer ahead of me, but I was unable to hear the cause. With the contents of my cart emptied onto the conveyer, I was told we would have to move to another line because there was a problem with the cash register.  The clerk assisted in reloading the cart and emptying it again.  I carry my own fabric bags including a thermal bag for frozen and/or dairy and conscientiously load the conveyor belt to make it easy to determine what goes in which bag; all frozen together, all dairy together, all canned/boxed together, etc.  She was not so conscientious and frozen ended up in every bag except the thermal one which made sorting through to put away the perishables urgent and much more difficult and time-consuming.


I got my attitude adjustment in the form of back and forth texts and a follow-up phone call from an old high school friend.  He can always make me grin and sometimes blush, even across the miles.  If my family and friends knew how therapeutic their voices are to me, I am sure they would want to wield that power more often.