Gratitude And Gas

 3:00 AM and the phone rings, waking me out of a dead Flexural-induced sleep! It’s my 2^nd oldest, the little birdie who flew the nest in December. He’s out of gas (again) and needs a rescue (again). Hubby’s out like a light and is facing a 12 hour shift come morning, so off Mommy goes…in the cold…and dark…

 I arrive to find a passing co-worker had stopped and given him a ride to the gas station. Nice! He asks me to wait, since he killed his battery trying to “wish” gas into the tank…Fine! Gas...check. Battery…check.
I follow him to the gas station to make sure said battery is going to re-start after a proper fill. As he’s pumping, I pop into the station for mandatory coffee…and he leaves! HE LEAVES! No thank you…no hug…NOTHING!

 I got back home around 4:30...wide awake. No going back to bed for me! So I sat and thought for awhile. First, about what a flippin’ knucklehead I raised. (Ungrateful little turd!) Then, after the grumbling subsided, I started thinking about gratitude in general. How easy a word it is to use, but how hard it seems to be to show.

 Personally, I’ve always been aces at showing the flip-side. (Just ask my parents!) But…how good am I at showing the better half? Oh, I say, “Thank you!” to people all the time, and I even mean it! But is that enough? Is that truly gratitude?

 Several weeks ago, while I was visiting my home away from home, AKA the pharmacy, I heard a woman COM-PLAIN-ING to the manager about one of the Pharmacy Techs. How rude the woman was to her, how much she needed to mind her own business and just do her job, and on and on. (Sadly, I know the one she was referring to, and she was dead on!) But it got me to thinking…how often do people track down the Manager to tell them what a great job an employee did? How helpful they were?

 So, when I dropped my script off, I made it a point to not only thank the woman for helping my at that moment, but I thanked her for always greeting me with a smile and never being judgmental about the number of pills this seemingly “healthy-looking” (thank you make-up!) 41 year old was taking home.

 Webster’s defines “Gratitude” as, “The state of appreciation and gratefulness; thankfulness.” I think I would like to spend more time in that state. I felt good to tell someone what they were doing right to make my life easier, not just what they were doing wrong.

 So, I guess my son taught me a bit of a lesson this fine, EARLY morning…gratitude feels GOOD! And the feelings happens on both ends of the
equation. So, for that, thank you son!

 Now…the next time the little rat comes over, I’ll be sure to teach him a lesson in return!