How Dare You! Don’t You Know I’m The Customer!?

Where we live in Terra Boa is way out in the jungle, on a mountain, pretty much in the middle of nowhere. There are a couple of little stores (really little... I think they have 3 shelves in each store) on the mountain and one bigger store (smaller than any convenient store in the U.S.) at the base of the mountain (I think they have 5 shelves in this one). Curitiba is a major metropolitan city that’s about 40 minutes away (depending on who’s driving). So to do major grocery shopping, that should last for 2 weeks (hopefully), we go into Curitiba. Well, yesterday was the day to do that and we drove into Curitiba and went to a store called Makro. It’s a big warehouse type store where you can buy in bulk and you have to box/bag your own stuff at the checkout line. It took us about an hour and a half to push our carts through the store trying to figure out what things were (everything is in Portuguese) and what the best prices were (everything is priced in the currency called Realis because we’re in Brazil, duh?). As we pushed our carts to the front, there were 5 registers to choose from and nobody was in line but us. We went to a register and the girl who was ringing us up was definitely not in a hurry. I think she must have taken a handful of slow-motion pills before she got there or something... haha. Anyway, after she rang us up, which was a painful process within itself, we pushed our carts about 8’ where we were stopped by “the door monitor lady.” We’ve been through this before in the U.S. so it’s no big deal. We handed her our receipt and rather than just looking at it she started pilfering through our 2 over-stuffed shopping carts. The same 2 carts that she just literally sat only 8’ away from, as her slower than molasses co-worker just loaded, while she watched! OK... what are you doing lady? We just stood painfully in line, while the super-slow-mo lady rung us up, and now you’re going to scrutinize our 2 shopping carts full of stuff that we just purchased? I mean... I just spent over $500 on groceries and cleaning supplies and you’re going to waste my precious time by looking at every single item in both my carts? I mean, it’s all about me, right? I’m the customer and you should be totally concerned with my happiness and expedite my shopping experience by graciously waving me through the door, but Nooooo!

Then she called over somebody else because she had counted everything in both carts twice and wasn’t coming up with the same number of items that were on the receipt. So now, after about 10 minutes, I had, not 1 but, 2 Makro “door monitor ladies” picking up and touching/counting all my stuff! Just about that time, unless Allen Funt was about to jump out and say, “smile-you’re on candid camera, I was ready to call for a manager and put a stop to this craziness... I went ahead and took a couple of pictures (they’re the ones up top) because nobody would believe it otherwise, then it happened. MJ (or as I like to call her- the Holy Spirit Jr... if you’re married you know what I mean) gave me “the look.” You know the one, right? The one that says, “You’re an idiot and unless you back down-everyone else is going to know you’re one too!” So, I just hung my head in shame and bit my tongue. And as I stood there while these 2 ladies (who were obviously mathematically challenged) were transferring all of the stuff out of my 2 jam-packed shopping carts into 2 other carts for the 3rd time, I remembered that I was here as a missionary... even at Makro. Ouch. Sorry God.

It’s not like we have a missionary hat that we take off and put on when it’s convenient for us. We’re missionaries all the time.

Now, you’re probably judging me at this point, aren’t you? You’re probably saying, “Man... Jim sure isn’t very spiritual.” “He should be more mature than that.” He should realize that he’s there as a missionary even at the store.” And you’re right. But, actually II Cor. 5:20 says, “we’re ALL ambassadors for Christ.” All of us... all the time. An ambassador is someone who represents a country or state and is the resident representative wherever they are. We should always have our “A game” on when it comes to representing Jesus. But we get in certain situations where we think we have “rights” and we just need to stand up for them and “give someone a piece of our mind.” Or maybe that’s just me?... yeah right! You know you probably struggle with it to. Whether it’s at the store, the drive through at McDonald’s, in traffic, when your neighbor ________.... we’ve always got to maintain our ability to speak into their lives. Even if it means forfeiting our rights or our feelings. So next time don’t sweat it when your order is jacked-up at Burger King. Just roll with it. And just go ahead and bless the person who cut you off in traffic rather than riding on their bumper. And when they ask for your receipt at the door at Wal-mart just smile and ask them how their day is going. Be the representative you were called to be. Represent.

And by the way, the ladies at Makro found out what the problem was... they missed 10 of the packs of Germani Noodles (the Brazilian version of Ramen noodles) that were in the bottom of a box... mystery solved. And it only took 20 minutes: )

One Big Jerk Serving Jesus,

Jim