Civil Neurosis

Why I say thank you when I want to say screw you.

Random grocery store encounter.  The cashier doesn’t look up, doesn’t greet, bags without seeing me, tears off the receipt and hands it to me without making eye contact and I say, “Thank you.”  What?!?  I storm out, fuming at myself.  What am I a trained seal?  “I sincerely appreciate you regarding me with the level of animosity reserved for child molesters.”  I say to myself next time I’m not going to do that.  Next time if the cashier doesn’t show me kindness why I’m just going to be just as shitty and rude.  So maybe the next time starts to unfold soon enough so I haven’t healed(forgotten) from the previous insult and  I recognize it as a possible negative encounter as it’s unfolding and I think of all the sincerely underemployed right now and I stare down this job-robbing jackass and declare, “Oh it’s on!” (in an inaudible whisper) and I stand firm and don’t say anything either and time starts to crawl, and he bags the items one by one and I stare at a pimple on his face, wondering if he has to stop ‘working’ more often than others to eat his overly processed food to maintain that unwavering icky energy. My eyes are warm and my vision has gone all tunnel, and for a brief moment I believe he has sensed my power, and right as I am about to blow air hard out of my flared nostrils, he tears off the receipt and hands it to me, and I take it silently and I turn and exit and we made the whole exchange without a word, and whatever secret tally he was trying to get on the day was busted because I got him.  I walk out of the store all jelly-legged and exhausted from the whole affair.  And strangely craving trans fats. I celebrate with a Little Debbie Nutty Bar.  It’s a win but it feels hollow.  And chocolate covered.  The moral for me is that civility, like spirituality, isn’t about a reward later on with seventy-two virgins in some place that doesn’t exist, but about how I feel right now.  I feel like being thankful.  The other just requires more calories than I am willing to eat.