Ten Items or Less

I usually only blog when something new, exciting, or at least noteworthy happens. Well, I'm fresh out of those types of stories, so I now subject you to the ramblings of my heart.

I was walking with my friend Melanie this morning, discussing relationships between friends and how we develop friendships and how we tend to lose friendships. Anyhow, what we were talking about is beside the point. We were both keeping an eye out for a certain tree that I had seen on Monday morning during our walk. This particular tree had one of those fake tree faces on it. In fact, there were 2 such trees in the same neighborhood. I was able to point one out to her, but the other I have been unable to relocate. Anyhow, she had pointed out how observant I was that I had even noticed these "faces" on the tree trunks.

Today, I was saying that I had felt complimented by her comment, but that there had been something that had happened to me recently that gave evidence to the contrary. Through our conversation, I could not recall the incident, but it is fresh in my mind now. So the long and lengthy explanation of the "unobservant" incident commences.

I spent Monday afternoon from about 4-5:30 pm at the grocery store. I had spent about 1n hour and fifteen minutes doing the shopping portion (it took longer because I didn't have my usual list format with me), and was searching for a check out line. It seemed that there were quite a few lines open, most about the same length. I decided on a particular line because the lady at the end only had 7 or 8 items in her basket. I thought this would make for the quickest escape. I unloaded the items onto the conveyor belt. As the cashier began to scan my first item, I heard him say "ten items or less." Apparently he was talking to the man in line behind me, confirming to him that this line was for customers with ten items or less. I looked up at the lane number and low and behold, the "10 items or less" sign was lit up. I was mortified and began to apologize to the man in line behind me. His response was a stone cold look of dismay and zero words of forgiveness for my blunder. I tried to avoid his stare as the cashier scanned my 60 or so items and my 8 coupons. I continued to apologize to the cashier, hoping the man behind me would hear and at least acknowledge my sincerity.

Anyhow, the point is...I am not always as observant as I'd like to be. The kicker to the story? I looked around at the other check lanes and literally every lane was open...and my lane was the one and only "10 items or less" line. I power walked my way out of HEB that day!