He Had Gatorade & I Had Haterade, by Scott Shirley

My day was going great.  It was this past Thursday and I had the day off.  I was home alone with little to do but relax and rest.  But I decided to run into town to pick up light bulbs at Lowes.  I grabbed a package of 4 bulbs and headed to the checkout line.  And then somebody made me furious.

Tell me this wouldn't make you mad...


Two people were in front of me but I was in no rush.  I was lost in my thoughts when I got a tap on my shoulder.  I turn and see a guy who looked like he probably did some sort of contracting or construction work.  He was dressed in heavy duty work clothes that were already pretty filthy.  He had this huge smile on his face so I smiled back and said something like, "hello" or "can I help you" or something... I don't really remember. Anyway, he motioned toward the cashier and just kept smiling.

Confused, I gave him a puzzled look and he tried to say something that I couldn't understand, probably because he was speaking Spanish.  He motioned toward the cashier again.  I was still confused.  I looked down and saw that he was holding a bottle of Gatorade.  When he saw me look at his Gatorade he held it up for me to see it clearly. Again he motioned toward the cashier while continuing to mumble incoherent Spanish. He never stopped smiling.  And it wasn't a normal smile.  It was huge and goofy and it was starting to irritate me.  I don't know why.

He held the Gatorade up one last time, somehow managed to smile even bigger, and rattled off another string of what I had decided was likely a bunch of poor Spanish grammar.  Using my incredibly attuned powers of deduction I finally understood what he wanted.  He hadn't paid for the Gatorade and wanted to get in front of me in line.  Now I was mad.  It just came over me in an instant.

Here was a goofy-smiling guy who knew I couldn't understand a word of his request, trying to cut in front of me, a complete stranger, who was purchasing nothing but a package of light bulbs.  Why?  At most he stood to save himself about 38 seconds of time that the cashier would need to ring up my package of 4 60-watt lightbulbs.  And he was persistent.  He kept inching up further and further in front of me as he mumbled expecting me to just give in and let him go.  And that stupid perma-smile was making my blood boil.

I don't know how it happened.  I wanted to hit him or at least choke him but I couldn't even say no.  My arms, completely against my will, motioned for him to go ahead. Worse than that, I noticed I was smiling a big stupid grin just like him.  But on the inside I was secretly banishing him and his family to the fiery pits of Hell.

He stepped in front of me, paid for his Gatorade and never said thank you.  He probably didn't even know how.  A few seconds later I had paid for my lightbulbs and was about 30 steps behind him in the parking lot.  I seriously thought about walking really fast to catch up to him in an effort to send a message about the pointlessness of his whole line-cutting episode.  But by that time I had come to the conclusion that he was too stupid to get the message.

Now, I suppose it is possible there was a good reason for what he did.  It is also possible that I could have simply smiled back and said "sure Mr. Gatorade man, you can get in front of me." But who does that?  Apparently not me.  I was too busy dwelling on my righteous anger.

Why do I act that way sometimes?  Why is it that I can be so self-centered I can't even let someone pass me in line without feeling like the person is one of the Devil's demons? In what I am sure was an attempt to lay a guilt trip on me, my wife pointed out that maybe the guy lived in the apartments behind Lowe's and had ran in to get the Gatorade for a sick child at home.  Thanks honey, I feel so much better.

(I am not sure what point I am trying to make by telling this story... so take from it whatever you like.)