Planes, Pools, and Coffee Machines

Actions:  Behavior; habitual conduct.  (You want to hear a synonym for actions?  Battle.  How cool is that?).


The Program teaches me that I need to pay attention to my actions.  It's amazing I need to be told that how I behave is important.  I thought that what was important was how I intended to behave.  Actions are for the unsophisticated.  Thinking is where it's at.  I read and re-read the part of The Book that suggests the world judges us on our actions, not our intentions.


"Really?" I said, genuinely surprised.  "Really?!"


When I got on an airplane a couple of hours after being discharged I found myself in front of some guy who didn't have an inside voice.  He wasn't in the row behind me, either; he was a few rows back.  I'm not even sure he was on the same plane.  He may have been inside the terminal at an airport in the next state.  Why is that the people who don't have an inside voice are never very interesting?


"Higher Power," I prayed.  "Please crash this plane so I don't have to listen to that guy any more."


I believe I've mentioned that prayer is not my strong suit.  I don't know what my strong suit is anymore.  I don't think I even have a suit.  I think I gave all of my suits to Goodwill.


Anyway, the following day I went with SuperK over to our exercise club to swim.  We popped into the hot tub for a minute to warm up before getting into the pool, which was crowded that morning.  Things are always crowded when I'm not in a good mood.  God thinks this is funny, to teach me patience by putting me in long lines.  I would prefer being struck patient.  That would be easier on me.


A woman came into the pool area and put a bottle of water on the floor in front of one of the swimming lanes, then joined us in the hot tub.  After a minute I got out and went over to the lane that she apparently wanted to reserve, even though you can't do that.  This isn't Hertz -- this is the pool.  We don't take reservations for pool lanes.  You can't say a pool lane for later.  You can get in the pool or you can stay out of the pool -- those are the two choices.  I pointed down at her bottle as if to say: "Do you want me to throw this in the garbage can or should I bounce it off your forehead?"


"I was getting ready to swim," she said.
"Like right now?" I asked, standing in front of the pool lane she wasn't standing in front of, being in the hot tub and all.
"In like 30 seconds," she replied.


I was trying to keep my temper chained up in the fiery pit that it calls home, but it was straining to get out.


"Were you waiting?" she said, stupidly.
I sighed.  "It's not that important."  I thought she would see that she was IN THE WRONG and let me swim first, which she DID NOT DO.  I sat along the full pool for 5 minutes until another lane opened up, stewing and boiling and judging.


Five minutes.  Can you believe that?  Five minutes.  I should have drowned her.


Today I went into Starbucks for a cup of coffee.  After the very nice young woman rang up my overpriced drink I remembered that I need a pound of coffee for home.  If you buy a pound of coffee then you get a free overpriced drink.


"Go ahead and pick out the coffee you want and then I'll ring it up," she said.  
"Why don't you go over there and pick it out yourself?" I wanted to say.  "I just told you what I wanted.  I'm the fucking customer and you're the fucking employee.  Don't make me paw through your stuff looking for something I want to buy."


Vaguely, I sensed that I was overreacting, so I went over and got the coffee myself.  When I returned to the counter I asked her to credit me for the overpriced drink that I had already paid for so that I could get a free overpriced drink with my pound of coffee, but someone else had gotten in line in front of me, so I had to wait.  It has been a bad week for me as far as queuing up is concerned.  I'm glad I didn't end up in the emergency room.


"Oh," she said, which worried me.  "That promotion only applies to this type of overpriced drink, not the kind of overpriced drink that you already paid for."  I have buying coffee beans from this chain for 15 years, always getting the kind of overpriced drink that I had already purchased, only for free.


This type of dialogue went on for a bit longer and none of it was to my credit.  I did not, however, buy the fucking coffee beans without getting a free overpriced coffee drink.


"So you don't want the beans? "she asked.


I thought of my sponsor saying: "Try not to talk, Horseface.  Just try not to talk.  It's only going to make things worse."


See how it is with actions?  I pay attention to them today.  While getting discharged and traveling and seeing my family didn't upset me too much, obviously it upset me more than I was willing to admit.  I could tell because my actions were exaggerated and inappropriate.