It has been a day about keys. The first lesson took place at the hardware store when I was getting keys cut to our new office space. The young man behind the desk looked to be younger than my grandsons. He was helping another customer, and I entertained myself by looking at all the options.
I could see beer brand key blanks, sports team blanks, specialty food key blanks, and blanks with heads shaped like myriad animals. I had no idea key blanks came in such fancy options. The fancy ones ranged in price up to about five dollars but a sign listed single cut keys at $1.99.
When the fresh-faced young man asked if he could help me, I told him I needed to get four keys made. He asked if I wanted silver or color.
“Is the price the same for the colored ones?” I inquired.
“Yes, I have these colors,” he pointed to the key blanks hanging on the wall. I was drawn to the pretty colors. Color can be such a nice touch. There were four color choices: red, green, yellow, and purple. I needed four keys. That seemed to be my answer!
“Let’s go with these,” I smiled as I dropped four blanks into his hand—one of each color.
I handed him my key chain, and watched as he turned on the machine that cuts the keys.I listened to the familiar grinding sound. In my former life as a clerk in a department store what seems like a century ago I used to cut keys…. A soft clink brought me back from the past as four colored keys were placed in my hand. I heard him saying I could pay for them up front.
As the woman working at the checkout scanned the first one I saw $2.29 in the window. Right and wrong are pretty hard wired into my being. “I understood the price to be $1.99.”
If looks could kill, I would not be writing this blog now. With a huff, the clerk turned to another employee standing nearby. “How much are the color keys? It rings up $2.29.”
Feeling the sand shifting under my feet, I knew I was stepping off my center. “The young man who cut them for me told me the price was the same as the silver keys.”
“Kyle!” the other woman yelled into a mic on her lapel. He was close enough that he answered without the sound system. Kyle (not his real name) walked toward us like a dog with his tail between his legs. “How much are the colored keys?”she demanded.
He threw me under the bus. It is always to save ourselves we do that. Most often to save face when there is no real threat other than to our fragile ego. “I don’t know,” he stammered.
Further from my center, I looked at him and spoke the truth. “When I asked you if the colors were the same price as the silver, you said they were.”
As his young, fresh, face fell, I came to my senses.
“I will pay the price. He made a mistake. It is such a small amount of money and money is certainly not something worth being unkind to a person about.”
I looked up at his face, sure he was looking back at me. “Mistakes happen. We are forever learning, aren’t we….”
I completed the transaction and left the store with four colored keys: Red, Green, Yellow, and Purple. It was easy to have compassion for the young man, but not so much for the two women clerks. When I sit in silence tomorrow morning I will be aware I misspoke when I told him I needed four keys. I obviously need at least one more: The key to compassion for all.
