Taken to the Cleaners

I can be carping and critical. I’ve been that way since childhood, although I’m happy to report I’ve mellowed considerably. Occasionally, however, I notice the critical mood emerging for no reason I can see.

It happened the other day when I set out to do errands.  There was a doctor’s appointment, a stop at the fruit stand for peaches, then on to the super market for calves’ liver, an unhealthy luxury my wife and I occasionally enjoy. I stopped last at the cleaners.  

On the main road I got behind a driver, and old man, probably younger than I am, going thirty on a fifty MPH road. I muttered to myself how inconsiderate he was since the road had only two lanes. "Old geezer," I thought contemptuously.

My wife had asked me to stop at a specific stand that sold peaches, a Georgia peach of which she was fond. When I asked for them, the woman at the stand looked at me with a bored, uncomprehending expression. “Well,” I said, “my wife got a box just the other day.” She looked at me as if I were Martian.  “Idiot,” I groused to myself as I left. 

I stopped at the parking lot of the super market where  a young woman drove into a handicapped parking spot and sprung out from her car  leaping like a rabbit. How abusive, I thought, to use the pretense of a handicap to commandeer the best parking at the market.

The doctor’s waiting room was packed and I sat, fuming, for what seemed hours.  

Fortunately the stop at the cleaners was redemptive. The two clerks are always  good-natured and they make me feel good.  They’d arranged goofy little plastic figurines in the store window for decoration that day.  The figurines  swayed and undulated happily.  They made no sense but between the clerks and the figurines, I felt happy. I  wasn’t critical any more. During the respite at the cleaners I cleared my head  enough to be reflective about my previous  attitude.

I saw just what I had been doing: I’d appointed myself the world’s moral policeman, insisting that the world conform to my high expectations and scolding it with my irritability for it’s failure to do so. Getting the world in line is a huge responsibility for anyone. I wondered though what would I do if the world suddenly conformed to my expectations.

Sure, maybe people would drive the speed limit, or not abuse handicapped parking places or would treat customers with a modicum of respect and doctors would schedule better. The down side is that  all these people would be be just like me: carping and critical in their rectitude.  Even when you’re in the right, being carping and critical is a joyless exercise. You get your way and still remain miserable.

This insight pleased me. My challenge was clear; how could I sustain the wisdom and insights of this moment. Great insights, like mountaintop experiences are typically short lived. They require conscious effort to keep alive.

I’d like to suggest to any of my  readers on the Shore today that if you suffer from a carping and critical attitude, and you’re miserable with it, have someone take you to the cleaners.  It’ll make your day.