Thursday, May 03, 2007

The Butcher, the Suave Man of Mystery



As usual on Wednesday, yesterday I went shopping at Krogers and Plubix grocery stores armed with coupons and a smile on my face to get my 5% Senior Discount at both stores.

Krogers carry certain items that Publix doesn’t carry, and visa versa.

Each time I go to Krogers there is a butcher there that looks very dignified. He is slim, stark white pretty hair and a matching white beard. He wears his white butcher smock in a distinguish manner as an Admiral or a wartime Commodore might. He is also graceful as he walks, he is a man of mystery.

He is usually the one talking to a customer. I have overheard him telling customers what he would do with a certain cut of meat to bring out the favor – you know he knows what he is talking about.

One Wednesday a couple of months ago it occurred to me that his stark white butcher smock is always stark white… no smudges, no blood stains or smears like the other three or four people that work in that department.

How could he get his smock dirty, he is always talking to the customers? – besides, it might take away from his charm if he had red stains on that smock – it might insinuate he was tangled up in raw meat and guts earlier – which would take away from his dignified appearance. Image is everything.

When I went to check out I filled the conveyor belt with all I bought while the cashier was ringing up another customer. I carefully placed the frozen foods together, with the hopes the person sacking the groceries would also keep them together, and any coupon that called for two items, I saw that the two items were side by side.

Then behind me stood a man, younger than me, with about 3 items in his hand. I looked around and down the cashiers line the “20 Items or less” cashier was leaning against something smiling and talking to the sack person of that line, in other words, she needed some work…. Why didn’t the guy carry his 3 items down there?

Then, an elderly woman came up behind him with an armful – maybe she was trying to juggle 5 or 6 items. Why didn’t she go down to the unbusy cashier also? And besides, why didn’t she have a buggy or at least one of those little baskets? Idiots!

Politely, I told the two people to go ahead of me. They both seemed very appreciative and gave me sincere thanks.

When it got to be my turn the cashier told me, “I saw what you did, allowing those two people ahead of you – that was so nice of you.”

I shrugged. I was about to tell her I was just going by the Golden Rule but it occurred to me you can’t get self-righteous by preaching the Golden Rule because if I did I would be breaking it as I preached it. Because I don’t want any Bible thumpers preach things out of the Bible to me.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey, the Hindus always say good karma isnt really good karma unless you only gain the good karma by not looking for good karma. You should always be pure of heart in your actions.

You know, thats what Jesus and Buddha and all those guys would do.

Eddie said...

Maybe they had bad days and they said, "the hell with it, today I am doing something for myself for a change!"