The Yogurt Fiasco

It is a gray and rainy Thursday here and as I wrote the date in my journal, I gasped to think we are nearly halfway through January!

I am still slowly moving trim into storage and negotiating daily with the local disposal company about picking up our tree from the curb. I may need legal counsel and possibly a therapist before it is all over.

I seem to have inherited a short fuse when it comes to dealing with the marketplace and while I fight desperately to bring it all under the authority of God…my genetics and wiring often win the day.

Take for example our stop at Sam’s Club last Saturday.

We needed a few things and of course the sample ladies were out in force.

One of them offered us some Vanilla Greek Yogurt from one of those 40 oz containers. It was delicious. Over her head was a sign proclaiming the regular price of $4.98 was, for a limited time only, being discounted two dollars.

Sign. me. up.

I had just purchased a mondo case of individual greek yogurts, but since the expiration date for this deal of a lifetime was in February, I pulled one out of the case directly under an identical sign that showed the same offer.

Fast forward to Mr. Reimer and me in the self-checkout lane as I scanned our items and noted on the screen that I was only given a dollar off of this impulse purchase.

I asked the young attendant and thus began a process that I will try to briefly summarize although it surely lasted a small eternity.

She got on some walkie-talkie and tried to locate another associate in the refrigeration section whilst a fellow employee happened along pushing a cart of cardboard boxes.

He interjected that the sale was actually on a different packaging size of the yogurt and the lady who was serving samples must have grabbed the wrong container.

It was at this point that all the Lochner/Ploch genes in me kicked into gear and I simultaneously formed my mouth into the firmest straight line possible, spit out my affirmation that the sign was clearly over the 40 oz tub containers and swiped my credit card finishing the sale.

I took my receipt and the clerk’s apology with righteous indignation and then managed to rehash the entire incident for a good portion of what was left of the day to my poor husband who doesn’t even like yogurt.

Truth is – I was right. I actually went back on Monday and the same sign is still up over the same containers of yogurt. The clerks were wrong. But so was I.

I sometimes struggle with the mental and spiritual question….What would Jesus do?…in my daily life.

And frankly, I don’t think he would have had a Sam’s Club membership so it gets murky.

However, I think I could have handled the whole situation better …. this will come back on me, you know, because my husband does read this….but I could have made a couple of different choices like going back myself and looking at the sign, or saying nothing and just pay the $3.98 and move on.

Or I could have done the thing I may have repeated numerous times to my husband I wish I had done…which would have been to just politely say that I would prefer to have it removed from the bill and leave it there.

Because that would have been my honest and genuine way to react.

I had only purchased it based on the advertised price and if that was false, than I was not under obligation to purchase it.

But the key here is …. POLITELY….and that is where I struggle when I feel I am being treated unfairly.

So since I can’t muster polite, I tend to get all snippy and cranky and I’m left with yogurt I didn’t need and a bad attitude that my poor husband had to endure.

And it does cause me pause to wonder how I would handle REAL persecution if I ever faced it.

Ah well….I have not a conclusion for this except to remind me and you that we are works in progress.

We are plunked down in a community and jobs and families and a world where left to our own natural devices we can endure pain and be someone else’s pain.

What a blessed to relief to know that we don’t navigate this alone. We have One who has gone before us and was tempted in every way we are, and yet was without sin…and now advocates for you and for me as we….journey onward <3