The New, Improved Uncle Jimbo

It's rare that I feel compelled to change the way I live my life, especially just because everyone else is making a resolution to improve themselves. But Uncle Jimbo has been doing some soul searching and figured it might be a good idea to try to become a softer, gentler Uncle Jimbo. My son is getting to the age where he absorbs everything I do. During Christmas with my family my neice, who is notorious for using questionable language, dropped a couple of warning shots across my sons bow. That was enough for me to warn her that he listens to everything and copies everything. To which my son started shouting, “copy, copy, copy….” The last thing I need is to have him see the jaded, pessimistic side of his father. So this year I resolved to improve my attitude towards others. People I know and people I don’t.

That lasted all of about 56 hours. My wife and I were grabbing some quick lunch at the grocery store and proceeded to the Express Checkout (7 items or less). The woman in front of us put a couple of things on the belt, so I put our food down, it moved towards the cashier. Then she pulled a couple of more things out of a now visible mini-cart and placed them right next to our food, so grabbed our food and pulled it back towards us. She continued to pull an item at a time out of the cart and put it on the belt so that the belt continually ran and I had to hold our stuff at the end of the belt. Three, four…..five, six…..seven, eight. Yeah great, another knuckle dragger that can’t read a simple sign. Nine, ten…..eleven, twelve….the items kept coming. Thirteen, fourteen….are you kidding me? HELLO, express lane.

It was at that moment I broke my resolution, I turned to my wife and said loud enough for many to hear, “Apparently, someone doesn’t know how to count.” Was it necessary, probably not. But it sure did feel good. I bit my tongue at that point and resisted the urge to continue to express myself. So the cashier finished scanning the 23rd item and declares, “The total is $42.90.”

At which point the woman just stands there, staring. Like Michael Moore at the all-you-can-eat buffet when the hotdog tray is empty. “How would you like to pay for that?” says the cashier. “Cash” is the simple response. Still standing, still staring. “The total is $42.90.” At which point the woman reaches into her wallet and extracts 3 one dollar bills. “$42.90,” the cashier clarifies. The woman reaches into an envelope and pulls out two twenties. She finally moves on. Later we watch her completely rearrange what bags each of the items were in.

But here is my dilemma, should I be more pissed at the dumb-ass old woman who doesn’t understand the basic principles of the Express Lane, or the cashier who, seeing this woman and her cart loaded down with 23 items coming into her lane, failed to wave the woman off and explain to her in kind and very small words that she needs to find a non-Express Lane for checkout. Or should I just blame myself for somehow always finding the slowest of all Express Lanes. It must be karma.

It was then that I realized why most people can’t keep their resolutions. They set the bar too high. I was trying to be nicer to everyone. So I modified my resolution so that only a single person will be the benefactor of my improved attitude. If it works out, I’ll try adding another person next year. But I don’t want to get ahead of myself. That’s what got me into trouble the first time around.