The Back Story
A few weeks ago I ran into Dollar General for a quick purchase. As I waited in line, the man ahead of me asked the cashier, “Did you give your chickens a bath?”
Always a people watcher, my ears perked up. “Yeah, we did it last night,” she replied. “I can’t stand the flapping.”
“I don’t mind the flapping, but I can’t stand the smell,” he said. “Did you get any eggs yet?
“Yeah, one,” she answered.
“Do you know which chicken it came from?” he wondered.
“It’s one of the speckled ones,” she said.
The man who hates the smell of a chicken having a bath completed his purchase and left the store.
“We have 4-H chickens,” the cashier told me.
“I didn’t know you gave chickens a bath,” I replied.
“I didn’t either,” she said. “We found out last night what ‘mad as a wet hen’ means!”
While in the process of making my purchase, I told the cashier: “I must say that that wasn’t the conversation I expected to hear at Dollar General!”
I was still thinking about this interaction when I got back into the car. As odd as the story was to me, I realized that I may have seemed pretty odd myself while I was in Dollar General. I had stopped in on my way to a performance of the Homeschool Dramatic Society so that I could purchase something — anything — to sit on in the pit.
The concrete ledge where I always sit during performances is about six inches too short for me to see the play. Every year I think I will bring some kind of “booster seat” to set on the ledge. Again I had forgotten to do that, so I had hurried from aisle to aisle in Dollar General, hoping to find something just right. What I found was a large decorative Christmas box. To test it out, I had sat on it in one of the aisles. If anyone had seen me, then they would have had an odd Dollar General story to take home to their family.
I didn’t know the back story of the chicken conversation at the check out stand and no one in the store knew my back story for sitting on a Christmas box.
Lots of the “odd” people we know have a back story. Our goal is to look beyond the odd to the person.
So, as those who have been
chosen of God,
holy and beloved,
put on a heart of compassion,
kindness, humility,
gentleness and patience . . .
Colossians 3:12
I laughed out loud. ..more at your behavior in the aisle.
Also, my heart was softened as well. I needed the message ! Thank you.
This is a very encouraging response, Keli. Thank you.