Mr. Rude and the beautiful day

Today was absolutely gorgeous: warm sun, no wind (major thing for Kansas), green grass, budding and leafing trees... I made my very first from scratch bierocks today. I'm not sure exactly where they originate, but this is a VERY LOCAL thing. We sell them at the coffee shop where I work and they are generally highly sought after wherever they can be found. A bierock is a beef, onion, and cabbage mixture inside delicious, homemade, sweetish dough. Mine came out YUMMY! It felt like a big "living in Kansas" accomplishment.

Tonight was the weekly women's Bible study I'm helping to lead, and it was wonderful. I treasure these women and their openness. I always come into the evening tired after working at the coffee shop from 1-6 and leave refreshed and energized.

Sandwiched in between making bierocks and going to Bible study on this beautiful day was an encounter with MR. RUDE. I truly enjoy my barista job. I love my fellow employees and the delightful people I get to talk with who come into the shop. I love coffee. I love our fabulous bakery items. I didn't so much love MR. RUDE (but I tried).

He walked up to the counter, and I super cheerfully greeted him, "Hi there! How are you doing today?"

He didn't say anything, looked at me with an undefinable expression, and finally held up his hand like the letter "b" in finger spelling and said "That's the best I can do." And then he laughed heartily at his joke.

I had no response to that - at all. So, I smiled and waited quietly for his order.
He ordered.
I rang it up, and told him his total.
The REALLY BIG PROBLEM was that I accidentally hit one wrong key, and so his total was not right. This was a REALLY BIG PROBLEM, because it made him super duper angry.
So super duper angry was he that he yelled right at me very loudly about how when he added up what the cost on the menu board was it came out to..., and he doesn't care what my register told me, and many more super duper angry things. I was feeling quite terribly flustered at the great intensity of his anger, but I began to turn the screen, so we could figure out what I had entered incorrectly together.
This somehow threatened him and made him EXTRA SUPER DUPER ANGRY, so he began yelling that this was MY MISTAKE and I needed to fix MY MISTAKE. This was his favorite saying for awhile.
Until about now, I had not really had much of an opportunity to say anything, because he could not use his ears while his mouth was yelling.
So finally, I said as nicely as my red-faced self could, "I UNDERSTAND THAT I MADE A MISTAKE. I am simply trying to find what it is and thought you could help me identify it."

What is funny is that when I finally said that, he realized something. I don't know exactly what it was, perhaps that I am 35 years old, perhaps that EVERYBODY COULD HEAR HIM, perhaps that maybe he wasn't being very nice. But he back-peddled very much and said all at once, "O that's fine, (smile with lots of icky syrup) all I need is for it to be made right, that's all I ask. Boy it's just beautiful today, isn't it?! Way too pretty to be spending it inside working, huh?! By the way, I hope you don't think I was grumpy at you. I'm not grumpy at all. All I ask is that it be made right, that's it! (BIG, BIG SMILE)"

He then proceeded to put almost the amount that was the difference between my mistake and my "making it right" into the tip container. Go figure!

The moral of the story is "Don't let MR. RUDE spoil a beautiful day," and "Even if I was 17 and a high school dropout, no one should be spoken to that way," and
"Never take your own revenge, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, 'Vengeance is Mine, I will repay," says the Lord. "But if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing you will heap burning coals on his head." Romans 12:19-20
Okay, slightly out of context, but we did give him a mocha.