For Whom The Mayonnaise Tolls
When I first started this blog, I casually mentioned “becoming annoyed” when a worker at the grocery store had stopped me to ask if I was “finding everything okay.” I was a man on a mission that day. I knew where everything in the store was better than he did and having to stop mid-quest to answer him just prolonged my visit there. A few hours after my post, a comment appeared on my blog. It was from the now-famous Steve Raker (be sure to read the Raker edition of Virtual Occoquan!) and he suggested that maybe I was “easily annoyed,” which annoyed me even more. But before I could think up a smart-assed answer for him, some voice inside of me said, “Whoa!”
He was right. Why get in a dither over a visit to the store? Being one who does problem determination professionally (though not seriously), I ran the grocery tape backwards to see if I could find the point where I had set myself up for the mini-rage. Imagine an otherwise skinny guy with a noticeable beer belly scurrying backwards with a blue grocery basket, from the meat counter, to the produce, dropping the basket at the door, driving backwards out of the parking lot, and then back home double speed. Freeze frame on one moment before I left the house, about the time I picked up the car keys – my only goal right then was to get back home with some ingredients, so I had visualized the entire intervening process as “wasted time.” In order to minimize that, I mentally mapped my route through the store to get the ingredients in the most efficient manner. I had not planned for interruptions and was therefore easily annoyed when one happened.
Since then, I see the symptoms early and have learned to avoid being an asshole when I don’t have to, which is most of the time. I am going to recite these to the second person, who rarely gets attention around here, do you? Yes, you. If you want to avoid any form of the mini-rage (these include road rage, air rage, and now, tragically, fast food rage) you have to start with an appreciation for your fellow players. That guy in the car ahead, the one you mumble obscenities about, he could be your Sunday school teacher whose only real failing is that he’s a terrible driver. He feels bad about it, but he still needs to get to work too. Defer, mentally bow to him as you would to a spiritual ninja, you are also only a minor player in his screenplay. Think of all the people you encounter as potential friends and you will be right 95% of the time. If you see them as impersonal assholes, it is because you are an impersonal asshole projecting your own mental illness on the blank screen of their unfamiliarity. Project kindness on them instead and you will be kind.
Don’t worry about being able to be an asshole when you have to, and those times do exist - it is natural and easy. Just quit when the necessity passes so you don’t permanently become one. Remember what your mother told you about your face “freezing” into the grotesque faces you made at the table! There is truth there, there was truth even before there were video cameras everywhere: The face you make might be the one people remember forever.
Okay. That’s the first part. Two words: Respect strangers. The second part is “slow down!” My trip to the store was not really an urgent thing. I could have stopped in the parking lot to identify the birds on the power lines. I could have made an amateur survey of the detritus around the store entrance. I could have stopped to examine the star fruit in the produce section and philosophize about the difference between a good one and a great one. Instead, I was counting steps and seconds between objects to purchase. No wonder I was “easily annoyed” – I had turned myself into a robot and and the human inside I resented that. I was “in a hurry” because it was only after I completed the mandatory subroutines that I could be a human again. I could have been a human the whole time.
What brought this on now is reading about the Texas woman who ran over a McDonald’s manager because she didn’t get mayonnaise on her burger. Here is the description from the BBC article about her trial (and 10 year sentence!):
She drew up at the Houston drive-through and insisted on having mayonnaise.
When the employee told her mayonnaise was not an option with her order, Nolan threw the burger back through the window, cursing and shouting.
When the employee called for help, Ms Jenkins came outside to the car park to offer Nolan a special order.
"I gave her everything she asked for - mayonnaise, no mustard, onions, everything I could possible do for this lady," the manager told reporters.
"Mayo, mayo, mayo, and it's still not good enough."
Witnesses said Nolan's car lurched forwards, knocking the manager down and breaking her pelvis.
It is easy to judge the woman who did this. Maybe not for you, maybe you don’t need this because the milk of human kindness flows so sweetly and naturally from your breast that have never experienced a moment of rage. If so, you are probably scratching your head and saying, “What is he talking about? I would never do anything like that!” Good for you! For myself, I have to admit that I have the potential to become enraged and, once that happens, who knows what might follow?
The reason we hear about road rage and air rage so much is that travel is one of those “robot” situations. The road becomes undesirable because it is an inconvenience between “meaningful” situations; it is a “waste of time.” So people get in a hurry and become assholes. Let me reiterate one time: Respect your fellow humans and slow down! Don’t become another Waynetta Nolan! It was only for one brief moment that she became The Mayonnaise Lunatic, but then her face froze. I believe we all have the potential and that’s one potential nobody wants to live up to. Respect, slow down, enjoy.
4:58:37 AM 
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