I’m not a religious person. I guess you could say I’m spiritual and I try to abide by the Golden Rule, but organized religion is lost on me. I would never condemn anyone for their beliefs in fact, a lot of times I wish I possessed a blind faith, but I always need to know why. This was sometimes a problem during my Catholic school years. I specifically remember grilling Father Keith as to why birth control was prohibited for married couples if they couldn’t afford to have a baby. He mentioned something about abstinence and I countered with asking how couples were supposed to show each other affection. I was in 8th grade. I knew nothing of marriage, babies or that abstinence wasn’t always such a bad thing.
This morning on my way to drop Kamryn off at school, I decided that I was going to try and make everyone’s day a little better. Before I had even pulled into the parking lot at school, I had waved 3 other drivers to go ahead of me at different points along the way. I usually do that once a morning because not doing it would make me look like a huge asshole.
After I got home, Rory and I played outside for a couple hours. We played hide-n-seek and I found out that he is a huge cheater. We played restaurant at the playground and I learned that it’s hard for him to just pretend to eat the woodchips. Regardless, we both had fun and I’m pretty sure our little extended play time made Rory’s day a little more fun since I’m usually juggling some household chores with bouts of play.
We walked home from picking Kamryn up from school and I allowed 2 other moms with strollers pass while I moved up on the grass. We were just leisurely walking and these other women appeared to be walking for exercise or maybe they were just really fast walkers. I know that when I’m running with Rory, it is a pain in the butt to have to maneuver around other people with a stroller so hopefully I made their walk just a bit better.
Let me be clear that I don’t feel like I was going above and beyond what a lot of people do every single day. I just tend to get a little too wrapped up in my own little world that the people around me tend to pass by in a blur. It’s not intentional, but I am always trying to think a couple of moves in advance and miss out on the present. After what happened next, I think I need to reconsider how I go about my daily activities.
I stopped in at the Verizon store because my phone hasn’t been working right lately. It’s never picking up the 3G signal so I’m not able to be as smart with my smartphone as I wanna be. I thought the kids had probably unchecked something during one of their sessions of Angry Birds, but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure it out. Nathan, my Verizon representative today, did some hard resets and some soft resets. I’m so immature, that I couldn’t help but think of those resets as innuendos and had this stupid smirk on my face. In my defense he said it like 8 times and one time he even said “I gave it the hard reset.” Seriously…even my grandma would have laughed at that one.
All of those hard resets resulted in me getting a new, upgraded phone! I don’t have the insurance so I was sure I was going to get told that I had to pay for it, but unbeknownst to me, my phone was still under warranty…for exactly 19 more days. So I have to ask; did all my good deeds get me a new phone? I looked Karma up on Wikipedia and I’m pretty sure this isn’t what Karma really means, but I’m going to give it a go again tomorrow and see what happens.
LOL This happens to me sometimes. The karma, not the, er, hard resets. Not sure I’d want t be given a “hard reset”, frankly.
Occasionally, something nice will happen and I take it as a kind of blessing. Like, for example, the time I got a brand new, free leather jacket because the store manager was so wrapped up in taking the anti-theft thingy off that he forgot to scan the barcode with the other clothes and didn’t charge me for it.
Don’t get me wrong – it was fall and hence the season to be buying winter clothes and we spent a TON of money in that store that day. But when I realised the mistake – halfway down the road – I, er, reasoned it was too late to turn back.
If it involves being given too much change though, I’ll tell the person. That’s a little different. I wouldn’t want to be overcharged so I don’t want to short-change anyone either.
Hmmm… maybe there’s a double standard in play here. Oh what the hell. Sometimes I accept it as a gift from life and other times I do the right thing and say something. I guess it all depends on what kind of mood I’m in and how far down the road I am.
I go through the same thing when it comes to retail errors. It actually depends on the store and the person who was helping me. If they really helped me out, I may go back or maybe call just so I have a clear conscience. If the associate was a jerk and not paying attention to my items because he/she was texting or gossiping with their co-workers, well, then I just scored myself some free shit! I never pay with cash so change is usually not an issue, the only exception is a restaurant. I never want to short a server because they don’t make shit as it is and I know how bad it sucks to get a shitty tip.
I agree… I always leave a tip. I usually try to leave 15-20% if the service is good. I couldn”t do that job – rushing around on your feet all day, dealing with angry customers and their kids… I always try to be nice. I’ve met people who don’t tip because they say the servers have a choice where they work and I just want to slap them LOL