I was at a meal in another city. The food was being served to the grieving family following a funeral (Yes. we do those in the South), when someone told me that the banana pudding on the dessert table was “the best in the world.” No one has to tell me that twice. So there I was in that line before you could say “that’ll be 50 Weight Watcher points.”
When I finally made it to that bowl of banana pudding that obviously was not your Cool Whip and Vanilla Wafer variety, but really probably was the best in the world, this woman came rushing up behind me, saying in her “outside” voice, “Hurry Fred! She’s gonna’ get it all.” Then she continued, to no one at all, but still in her “outside” voice “There’s got to be two more servings to come from that bowl.”
Now, I have been in some situations in which people were…well, rude, but I believe this one takes the cake (or the pudding, in her case).
This was rude because:
- I had just as much right to a spoonful of that banana pudding as she did ( more, really, because I was in front of her in that line.)
- Who was going to even enjoy the “best banana pudding in the world” if your blood pressure was going up to 180/92 BEFORE you even ingest the sugar?
- Such concern for a serving of pudding when people all around you have just walked away from a newly made grave is something of which I didn’t even know civilized people were capable.
- Fred was surely embarrassed. Wouldn’t you be?
- It was child-like selfishness and “me-firstness” to the max.
I do not know this person. Perhaps she does not have all of her wits. Perhaps she doesn’t have the food she needs now or maybe she went hungry as a child. I did feel sad for her. But several passages came to my mind…
“Let no man seek his own, but every man another’s well-being” (I Corinthians 10:24).
“Many that are first shall be last and the last shall be first” (Mark 10:31).
“…Forbearing one another in love…” (Ephesians 4:3).
“As you would that men should do to you, do you even so to them” (Matthew 7:12).
And then there’s this. It’s not exactly, word for word, in the Bible, but I think it applies:
“Whosoever would be chief among you, let her have your serving.”
