On Probation

A couple of months ago I sat in the airport "people watching" waiting impatiently with four anxious kids for Eric's plane to land after a long two weeks in China. It was already one hour past the arrival time. The flight listings in the terminal still ranked their status as "on time". I noticed a spirited waitress working in the adjacent restuarant. With only one customer to wait on she snuck by me and into the restroom. Now understand that I am a germ-a-phobe and the first thing I noticed was that she was wearing her apron with drinking straws hanging out. A few minutes went by and she came back out, still wearing the apron, and still the thin-paper covered straws were hanging out. (The last time I watched Oprah about 4 years ago she did a story on all the unseen things that splash out of the toilet when you flush it) She went back to work, taking a drink to the patron in the resturaunt, and handed him one of the straws she had just kept on her person (although I did not see her IN the bathroom and know this for sure) while using the little girls' room. I grossed out and luckily an announcement of Eric's flight landing stole my thoughts away from the vivid germs and bacteria in my head. So, today I was baking some goodies to take somewhere tonight. I put the timer on and thought, "I have just a few minutes to run to the bathroom." As I sat down on the toilet I realized that I was wearing my apron. What a hypocrite I felt like as the airport story came gushing back into my thoughts. Instead of loving that person in my head that day I was finding something to judge this person on. She was someone I didn't even know. Yes, she looked a little leathery and maybe had been through some tough stuff in her life and yes I was judging this woman. Today I was extremely convicted of the thoughts in my head and the words in my mouth. I'm putting myself on probation (kind of like my 6 month clean record probation the city attorney put me on in court last week). I am going to work on what things are in my head...not just the things on my tongue.