"He that can have patience, can have what he will..." ~ Ben Franklin

On this delightful afternoon, I want to address a personal encounter regarding respect for others.  However, first things first, you may have noted "delightful" in the sentence above.  That adjective is referring to the weather in Glendale, Arizona, which I find to be full of delight.  While Minnesotans are welcoming freezing temperatures, we're enjoying our 70-degree weather for the rest of the week.  Just a little sidenote to help you all remember what it's like outside of Minnesota :).

On Thursday, I had written about my wonderful, drunken outing in Tempe and Phoenix.  Immediately before I began this excursion, it was time to get the ears lowered.  So, I make my way across the AZ-Loop 101 and pull into my favorite Great Clips in the area.  Now, this is where my continuous thoughts on "patience" come into play.  Being it's a Great Clips, they offer one of my most valued aspects of any business.  Versatility.  No appointment.  I just can cruise in whenever, drop the John Hancock, and usually be out shortly after.  When you enter, the nice ladies stop what they're doing, quickly note your name, and give you an estimated wait time.  They inform me it'll be twenty minutes, which gives me adequate time to rock the newest ESPN magazine that was sportin' the shelf.  This is going fine and dandy, until the fifty-ish year old man next to me starts verbally announcing his displeasure for everyone in the waiting area to hear.  So, I strategically shift myself to the opposite side of my chair, which provides the furthest distance and best chance of me not being associated with this man.  At the time, it was imperative for me to indirectly and discretely show everyone that, "No, this man is definately not my father, and please, please, please don't make that assumption."

Then suddenly, the displeasure begins.  After noticing that nobody was interested in responding to this man, he turns and begins his rant towards me, as if I'm going to automatically agree with him by nature.  What was he arguing about you may ask?  A young gentleman had the hair stylist (One of three) stop for a few pictures every once in awhile as his twin daughters were getting their haircuts.  So, my verbal response was something like "Eh, hopefully they're almost done anyway."  On the otherhand, my thought process was this:  "You come into a Great Clips, which clearly runs on variable time intervals, and you're going to grumble about a few ten second pictures?"

Those of you who know me, know that I enjoy withholding my antagonistic viewpoints.  Under the consideration that a social argument would have only made the scene worse, I kept to myself.  The only clear goal I had in mind would be to inform this impatient man that his argument is invalid, but that probably wouldn't have gone over so well.  So, now I resort to telling you my viewpoint of his character flaw.

Humanity is slowly losing its grasp on valuing patience within our lives.  For me, those twenty minutes were invaluable to my demeanor.  It was the first time I got to sit and enjoy some reading material that I actually enjoyed, rather than learning to decipher unconjugated and conjugated bile in terms of pre-hepatic, hepatic, or post-hepatic jaundice.  With three different hairstylists working, chances were that one of the other stylists would finish first anyways, and therefore making his argument worthless.  It's metaphorical to an unintelligent teenager who dangerously weaves in between cars with few feet to spare, only to have me catch right back up to him at the stoplight two-hundred yards ahead.  He didn't gain anything.  Either did this man at Great Clips, except a slight increase in his diastolic and systolic measurements.

And that's where I leave you today.

Follow your bliss,
KJL

LotD - (Quietdrive - Time After Time) [Cover for Cyndi Laupner]
"Caught up in circles, confusion is nothing new"