Hardware store integrity

It's the Saturday before Easter. My boyfriend and I are wandering around shopping for a replacement for the vaccum I had blown up a few days before. The local hardware store was a natural choice, after having visited the specialty store.

In the spirit of Easter, management had placed dozens of plastic eggs throughout the store, each containing a little slip of paper with a discount written on it; 5%, 10%, even 20%. I don't know where the child in me had been sleeping, but suddenly she let out a yelp of glee having found a purple, plastic egg with 5% off tag tucked inside. I walked a ways down the aisle, smiling, and glanced down only to see another egg. I picked it up. 10% off. So I put my 5% egg down in it's place.

Apparently, by now, I had fully reverted to the state of a 7 year old. It was just so much fun! I'd find and egg, check the discount, and if it were more than mine, I'd trade. If it weren't - I'd put it back. I hadn't been on an Easter egg hunt in years. My boyfriend must have found the same child within (which isn't a surprise) and the two of us were walking the aisles, grinning from ear to ear and hunting colored eggs. It felt wonderful.

"What are you doing? Are you checking all the eggs?" I looked up to see the face of a sales clerk I had flashed a deeply genuine smile to just a moment before. I think I shrugged or something, still smiling, thinking it was part of the game. You know, she was just giving me a hard time cuz it was funny. Or something.

"I guess we just rely on good old integrity. People having integrity. Doing the right...." Suddenly the blood was pounding so hard in my ears that I didn't hear the rest of her speech. I was embarrassed, then I was pissed, then I was more embarrassed. I walked around a minute longer, my mind spinning out of control, then walked over to my man, told him what she said, and that I was humiliated and would wait for him at the car.

Sitting on the hood (because I didn’t have keys), soaking up the sun and sorting through the experience, I ran through all the emotions again. I justified; I have integrity. Loads of it. Ask anyone. I excused; Everybody would do what I just did. They set us up for a game of find-the-biggest-discount. What did they expect. I got pissed; I wasn't going to buy anything. But, if I had found the 20% off, I would have bough the vacuum here. See if they ever get my business again. I felt bad; She's right. How did this happen? How did I not even think about how unfair that is for everyone else? What's happened to me? I used to have integrity.

The longer I sat, the more drastic the emotional swings were. I started to imagine my boyfriend within talking to my accuser. I imagined him telling this woman that I am an extremely generous woman, that I am always looking out for others, that I have more integrity than most in the world. Then finishing her off with "And we would have spent a lot of money in your store, that we didn't otherwise intend to if we had found the 20% off discount. But, now we won't be back. Ever!" I imagined him walking to the car, with a tiny little sideways smile on his face, like a warrior who had defended his princess.

That's not what happened. And, truthfully - I am not the kind of woman that would want something like that to happen. I'm little miss "I can do it myself". Have been my whole life. The only reason I wanted it just then was because I didn't have the nuts to argue with the woman myself. Plus, the more I thought about it, the more right she seemed.

Damn. I'm not as great as I thought. The fact that I didn't even think about it being wrong is a red flag screaming - "You've lost your integrity!" And the fact that somewhere I was looking for a Prince Charming fairytale to emerge out of my real life, is another tell tale sign I’ve lost some part of my deeper, more grounded self. Who is this different person anyway? Where the hell did she come from?

I don’t know and I’m trying not to care. The thing about this kind of thing is that maybe it just reminds us we are humans. Maybe it just settles us down into our realities. Ok, so I probably shouldn’t have checked all the eggs for the best discount. But I think the lesson is more that I shouldn’t let people get to me like that. I want to be the kind of princess who stands up for herself. That’s it, Right there. The lesson for me is that I don’t want to be the girl sitting outside, waiting for someone else to defend me. I want to speak for myself. I wish I had told that woman that I was just having fun, and that if she hadn’t spoken to me that way, I would have bought something from her, just because I was going to get a discount. I wish I’d have said that and smiled. And walked away.

But, since I dreamed it all up anyway, it's going to make for a great romance story someday.