Why would a guy in a sport coat be buying dog food at Wal-Mart at 3am?

Making judgments is easy.  You can see something and come to conclusions on people’s motives and what’s happening even without the full picture.  The tipoff that this is probably not a spiritual judgment is that the judgment is almost always negative.  I do this all the time.

That dark Cadillac following us for twenty miles on I-77 the other day, speeding up when I sped up, slowing down when I slowed down, never passing and never letting me pull away from him?  He’s doing it on purpose.  He’s trying to get a reaction out of me.

Those guys collecting for the homeless in the intersection by the Walgreens on Independence Boulevard?  It’s some kind of scam – they’re catching you when you’re stopped at the light and you don’t have time to check them out and they know you’ll feel guilty if you don’t give something.

The slow checkout person?  It’s a power play.  Wants everyone to know she resents her job and customers so she’s slowin’ down the whole line.

That political party and it’s leaders I disagree with?  How could they be so blind?  How could they mislead people so much?  It’s like they’re evil.

And that lady in the shiny gold top getting out of an old BMW off to the side of the parking lot of the closed gas station when a guy pulls up to the pump on deserted Wilkinson Boulevard at 2am?  She thinks he’s there for something besides gas and he thinks she is, too – and anyone else who sees thinks the same thing.   

Which brings me to that guy in the sport coat buying dog food at Wal-Mart at 3am – he’s the same guy at the closed gas station with the lady in the shiny gold top!  Obviously he’s been up to no good all night and is probably hopped up on goofballs and…

Wait a minute, that guy is me and I’m still wearing my clothes from the graduation I attended earlier in the afternoon in Wisconsin and my flight was so delayed I didn’t get back in Charlotte until 1:30am and then couldn’t find my car and soon as I found it my gas light was on and I had to look for an open station fast but it wasn’t and the shiny lady appeared and I went Yikes! and skedaddled miles to find another station and now it’s really late (or early) but I promised Brenda I’d stop and get Delly some food because we’re leaving town in the morning and I don’t want to leave Delly at the kennel without her own food so even though it’s 3am, I’m buying some Iams.  And if anyone thinks anything negative about how it looks, well that just says something about them.

But I’m right about those others.

Comments

[♥alyson]

i will never forget being about 10, in the car with my brother when a man walked by, hands in his pockets and looking to me as if he was talking to himself.

i said "Look at that guy! He must be mental, talking to himself like that!" ("mental" being quite the insult in the world of 10 year olds).

My brother thought a moment (but only a short one) and said, "Maybe he is happy and singing. Maybe he is reciting all of the capitols of all of the states because he has a job interview and that's how he fights being nervous. Maybe he is practicing asking a girl to marry him".

That was the first lesson i recall in suspending judgment, and i bet you don't remember it at all.

♥