Sitting inside Happy Honey Nail Salon the other day, I
overheard strange noises coming from the waiting area. I glanced over and caught sight of a suburban
woman wearing yoga pants, a ball cap, and a tremendous amount of bling for
mid-morning Monday. She was rolling her eyes and ‘tsking’
repeatedly.
“Five more minutes,” cried the salon manager. “You came too early.”
This was met with a tsk, a grunt, and a muttered, “I
thought you might be able to get me in now.”
Then I heard sniffles from her side of the room. Surely she’s not crying, I thought. I mean, after all it is only a nail
appointment.
She got up, stomped past me and the other customers, and
entered the ladies’ room. She came out with
a roll of toilet tissue.
“Don’t you have any Kleenex?” she snapped at no one in particular. One of the nail techs left her customer, went
to the back room quickly, came out even quicker, and handed this disgruntled
patron a box of tissue.
“No,” Ms. Tsk replied, clinging to the toilet tissue as if her
life depended upon it. “I’ll just use
this. You guys must have mold in
here. My allergies are going ape!” The nail techs began speaking to one another
in their native tongue. I made a note to
myself to contact Uncle Ed to see if he picked up any language lessons during
his stint in Vietnam. Then it occurred
to me that nail salon gossip was probably not something he encountered too often
during combat.
After an incredibly heavy sigh, a nose blow, and yet another tsk, our yoga-panted friend
stormed out of Happy Honey, taking the roll of toilet tissue with her.
I never thought of stealing TP in order to teach someone a
lesson, but hey, if it makes you feel any better about things….
And the hits just keep on coming….
A blast from the past with whom I reconnected via a social
media site has determined that ‘some things never change’ and as a result, she
disconnected herself from those with whom she reconnected, including
yours truly. Evidently, she’s held a
grudge since childhood – why, I don’t know, for she seemed to have it all as
far as my young perspective could tell.
Long story short, a planned gathering that took weeks to figure out was
not to her liking. I had no opinion on
the gathering either way, but she apparently did. I wasn’t hurt by her disconnect, just a
little baffled how I, who has very little interaction with these folks,
got lumped into it all. Her Disconnect
Proclamation stated that she would again accept a social connection invitation
from those of us whom she ‘dissed’, but I’ve opted to decline. We were never that tight in the first place,
and I’ve got plenty of connections keeping me entertained and up-to-date on
whose child has the worst earache and ‘That’s What’s for Supper’ photos for the
time being.
So I find myself musing today about how far people will go
in order to ‘teach others a lesson’.
Sure, you’ve got the usual – quitting a job and blasting Johnny Paycheck’s
Take This Job and Shove It while
emptying your desk drawers and stealing the company’s stapler and pushpins, allowing
your husband’s dirty clothes to pile up because he hasn’t complimented you in
weeks, or taking a neighbor’s beat-up old bicycle to the dump because he’s had
it parked on your side of the lawn for days.
(Side note: he got the bike from
the trash – I saw him, and short of parking it on my property he didn’t do a
darn thing with it, so there.) Are we
really teaching a lesson here, or are we simply delving into drama in order to
garner a little attention, some sympathy, or perhaps even a bit of notoriety? Does ‘sticking it’ to someone make us feel
better, really? In my case it did, but I
shouldn’t speak on someone else’s behalf. I have issues.
Personally, I think the best way to teach a lesson is to
live by example. Through our manner of
living, we can offer someone an awful lot to think about – whether good or bad. Some of my best teachers have been truly the
worst sort of people, but I’m thankful for each episode, for it made me realize
what I don’t want out of life:
pettiness, selfishness, micro-managing, and weird-but-not-in-a-good-way
type of stuff.
With that being said, I do understand that even the most
blinged-out among us might be struggling with some sort of incomprehensible
scene – we really shouldn’t judge. I
know firsthand that high school hurts can run deep, and boy, am I glad I let
those go years ago. It is my sincerest wish that anyone who was bullied, mocked,
or just plain ignored are able to do so as well.
But stealing toilet tissue?
That’s just messed up.
