At the hypermarket, I had bought ten bottles of mineral water, a particular one that I can only find there. The cashier sneezes, doesn’t put her hand to her mouth, but sneezes into her arm, just like the various authorities advised us to do in the pandemic, on TV.
The lady in front of me, after paying, tells the lady at the cashier’s desk that another time she should put her hand to her mouth when she sneezes, because that’s how we were brought up. The cashier shut up, the customer left, all good, I thought, good thing it didn’t come out with a fuss. But no! I jumped to the conclusion too quickly! A bottle of mine fell off the conveyor belt. I had put them up. The cashier seized the moment to give away the negativity she had received a minute before. She gave me a match theory I didn’t know what hit me. I picked up the bottle, said next time I’ll put them on the tape as the lady wishes, smiled.
But I figure that’s how things happen in other situations, professional or personal. Someone tells us something, suggests something or makes an observation, and then, in cascade, we do the same to someone who happens to come our way. The latter is the sure victim of pent-up frustrations, negativity received from elsewhere or even imagined. It would be better to always have a hint of calm, to smile, to quickly realise the situation and not to get carried away, to quickly draw the worst conclusions, to trust in the good intentions of others. At least that way, once in a while.
