Mondays are my day off and, truth be told, I try pretty hard to shut myself off to the world. I avoid email, social media, phone calls, even (and I’m not saying this is a good thing) conversation with people other than my family. I went to Trader Joe’s this past Monday to pick up a few things and while unloading groceries onto their tiny counter, I heard a boy behind me say to his father, “Hey, he got the same thing we did!"
I had a sense that he was talking to me and I also had a sense that he wanted me to turn and see what exactly he was talking about. But it was Monday and, as I noted, I am not in a chit-chatty sort of mood on Monday. The boy, however, made a couple of other comments about the similarity of our groceries, specifically one item that he proudly held in his hand. I can’t recall what he said that made me finally turn around, but he held up a quart of chocolate milk. I had also purchased a quart of chocolate milk. He grinned and said, "Would you like some?” He asked that question because he had clearly already opened the milk and, I assume, taken a few swigs from the container. So many things went through my mind, like, couldn’t this boy wait until he got home to start drinking the milk? Did his father sanction this opening of the milk and drinking it in the middle of the store? I declined the invitation and increased my pace of putting groceries on the counter in order to expedite my exit from the store.
I’ve thought a lot about this boy’s offer since then. Was he simply being cute or attempting to be cute? How would he have responded if I would have said, “OK!” and then start drinking out of the container? Was he actually being generous? I don’t know the answer to any of these things, but this proposed offering has stuck in my head.
It seems like I’ve had a lot of interruptions like this in recent weeks and my first response is almost always to shun the interrupter. Can I get to the point where instead of getting annoyed by interruptions, I can be delighted by the surprise?
That is going to take some time.