Shopping Cart Rage
"A few weeks ago, as I left the checkout line at a grocery story, I saw two shopping carts, each containing small plastic bags. I assumed that the one nearest me was mine and pushed it in my car. As I picked up the bags, I noticed that their contents were not mine and turned to go back to the store. Just then, an angry-looking woman accompanied by an assistant manager came out of the store and headed in my direction. Pushing my stolen cart, I met them halfway and said to the woman, 'I must have, . . .'
"'That's my cart!' she yelled.
"'I know, I must have . . .'
"'That's my cart!' she yelled again.
"Each time I started another sentence, she interrupted with the same three words.
"By now I was angry. 'Could you say that one more time?'
"'That's my cart,' she answered.
"'Thank you,' I said. 'That's very good.'
"Not liking that exchange, the woman reached out and jerked the cart out of my hands, even though I had already handed her the bags.
"Then I saw that the assistant manager had the cart with my bags in it. Remarkably, he apologized to me, although I'm not quite sure why. I thanked him, took my bags out of the cart, and that was the end of the incident.
"In thinking about what had happened, I realized that I had had no particular reaction to her saying, 'That's my car,' for perhaps ten or fifteen seconds. My anger came when the thought, 'I don't have to take this,' entered my mind. Looking at this thought more closely, I saw it was more accurately, 'I am not a person who is obliged to be treated in this manner.' Or, 'I am not a person to be trifled with.' Or, 'I will not be disrespected.' As you can see, I was now looking at the woman through the lens of my own false dignity and had to come to the rescue of my ego. This one thought made me a victim — because now my pride was vulnerable to her anger. Yet the thought was merely my personal interpretation of what was happening.
"Consider all the thoughts I could have had as I stood there: 'This is rather funny.' 'How is the assistant manager reacting to all of this?' 'I bet I work this into my upcoming sermon.' (I did.) 'Here is still another example of my absent-mindedness.' 'What has happened in this woman's life that this is so important to her?' 'The sun is shining. It's a beautiful day. And this will be over soon.' 'What would be my reaction if this was a gorgeous supermodel?' and so on. Each of these thoughts would have generated a different emotion. On the other hand, if the woman had thought of me as a hunk (I realized I'm stretching here), she would have spoken in a different tone — or at least not have felt quite so confident that she could jerk the cart away from me."
