Slushy and fishy I went

Slushy and fishy

I went to the Soundview Cafe, in Pike Place Market, for lunch today. I realized, once again, what a wuss I am.

I am currently reading “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”… yes, it’s a cult. Yes, Franklin Covey is a freak. However, Tracy (the only person in my last job that really treated me like a friend) recommended it to me right before I left… she said it had really made a difference for her, and that it’s one of those books you have to be at the right point in your life to really appreciate. So, I got it… and I think I may just about be at “that point”. So far, I’ve gotten through the first step, which is to be proactive rather than reactive. Now, under normal circumstances, I hate the word “proactive”. It makes me ill. I feel like it’s used as a catch-all word to connote many, many different things. (I’m especially tired of seeing it in employment classifieds. It always makes me say “Well, I guess I’m not qualified for this job, because I’m not an office piranha.”) But, in the context of this book, it just means to be a participant in your own life, rather than an observer. That’s pretty much what I am. (An observer, that is.)

In any case, how this affects my lunch…

I walk into the Soundview cafe, order my hummus sandwich on a bagel with onions/tomatoes/cucumbers, and then at the last minute decide I want seafood chowder too. So, I direct my gaze toward one of the tiny cups, but somehow when I order, that gets translated into “bowl”. So, the girl behind the counter hands me this BUCKET of chowder, but since I’ve convinced myself that it’s not worth it to tell her that I only wanted the half-gallon bucket, I take it. Since it’s so much more expensive, this means I no longer have enough $ left for my bus ride home. As I slosh through the huge bowl of chowder with my rubber waders on, I wonder, idly, what the hell I was thinking. My conversations with myself, at this point, go something like this…

Proactive Alicia: “You idiot. You could have just said ‘hey, sorry, I meant cup. Is it too late to change my order?’ “
Reactive Alicia: “No, I COULDN’T, there was a huge line and I did say ‘bowl’. I think. It was totally my fault.”
Proactive Alicia: “You THINK? Even if you had, you could have changed. Now you have to walk home. Moron.”
Reactive Alicia: *sigh* “Yes, I am a moron. I know.”