Words_for January 2010

TO DOS:


Pick up my Harry Potter book
(C'mon Kimi, you're so close to the end of the series!) I just need to read the darn thing. Believe me, it's incredibly good and I eat it up (it's like buttah); it's just actually finding the time to sit down and enter my literary bubble of magic and wizards and brooms and spells is the problem. I'm attempting to solve this problem by putting "READ" on my daily agenda. I'll let you know how it goes.

Be more assertive
I took my dry cleaning to a new business across the street; mostly for the convenience. I usually frequent The Dry Clean Depot ($1.75, are you singing the song?) but thought I'd give this one a whirl since it's only a 2 minute drive (if that). An added bonus is that the owners are really adorable Korean people who probably talked about me after I told them to key in "Raspa" on the ticket. ("Raspa", what is that; she's probably married to some white guy with severe yellow fever; they're taking all of our women; let's charge her more, that'll teach her a lesson.) Or they might have just noted how I looked as if I had gone to the gym when in fact, I hadn't, I just didn't get a chance to take a shower for a day...or two. Anyway, I had two items to dry clean: a dress and dress pants. My receipt said $13.90. For someone who usually pays $1.75 per item, you might as well have punched me in the crotch. But I smiled and promised to return within a few days to pick up my items and kept thinking about how cute the little Asian lady was and how she giggled after every number I gave her when she asked for my phone number. (Oh, Asians...)

I return to pick up my items. It's a man this time. He has the same giggly, googly presence. He at first brings me the wrong order. "$20.30" he says. I tell him that's not my order. More giggles. He then retrieves the correct order. "$20.30" he says again. I point to the receipt attached to my clothes and say, "Do you mean $13.90?" He shakes his head but then does a double take. "Oh!" He exclaims and looks at his computer. He then explains that the hem of my dress came out during cleaning and they had to hem it back into place, thus charging me $7.50.

The assertive person in me (who was apparently buried or unavailable or unconscious) was dying to say: "You should have called me when this happened and shouldn't have assumed that I would have wanted it hemmed here when I could have done it myself or had another capable person do it for significantly cheaper, if not for free. I'm a brand spanking new customer as of three days ago and I don't think it's right that you tacked this on to my bill; I'm not paying for the hem, although I appreciate the gesture, you should have called me first, and if you want to keep a customer, you'll take the $7.50 off pronto."

But the realistic, people-pleasing, whatever-it's-just-$20 person in me said:
"Oh.... okay. Um... fine." And I reluctantly handed over the $20.
So what could have been a $4 total errand turned into a $20 Korean money-grubbing miscommunicado jokes on me scenario. Boo.

Do the Hard Thing
That's what she said? Too often I shy away from difficult scenarios whether it's work, relationships, hobbies, whatever. This past year I saw a lot of my relationships toughen in good ways and bad. Sometimes the test of a friendship is how you stand by that person when unfortunate things happens. I'm not sure I've been a very good friend historically. But I think this past year made me see the necessity to brave it out even when you're wrong or hurt or confused or maybe you don't see eye to eye. But you need to brave the bull to test the strength of what's really important. Avoiding hurt or communication is retreating from where God wants us to be which is in community and love with one another. I'm not good at this but I want to try. It's not even up to me whether I should or shouldn't power through a relationship; it's God who pushes me and gives me the strength to do what I know I can't, especially when I have no desire to. It's a tough lesson to learn because you have to really put others first, which is the last thing I want to do.