The waitress teaches me a lesson
The idea of “god” used to turn me off. After all, how could I trust something that allowed bad things to happen to the innocent?
The problem was that I placed my trust in people I didn’t know well or who reminded me of my abusers, and was disappointed. Then, I tried to fix those people, as if I had the power of god. Over time, I stopped believing I was the director of the universe and that my compulsion to control people and situations was making me sick. What a relief! I could stop wasting my energy trying to fix others.
But I still slip up sometimes, as I did yesterday.
No matter that I knew that Swiss restaurants—especially those catering to tourists on mountain passes—feature horrible customer service; when that waitress spoke disrespectfully and loudly to my daughter and me, I felt shocked, unwanted, and angry. I should have felt some sympathy for the poor woman, who was working on a Sunday and who was juggling complaints from other diners.
My daughter told me to cool it. Instead, I complained to the manager and waited in the car.
In retrospect, I think I was playing director of the universe. Who the hell did I think I was? Yes, she was rude, but who was I to teach her a lesson?