It's just a little over ...

In the course of my morning I stopped to buy gas for my car, if you are like me you no longer "fill'er up" and the $2.93 a gallon I paid did not seem as outrageous as it did a year ago.  And like most of us I do not fill up anymore, just in case the price comes down.  But this morning I had to buy gas, I had driven 35 miles since the low fuel light had come  on a couple days earlier.  

Another problem with gas prices being so high is the display on the pumps.  It used to be dials but time and technology have changed all of that to digital with six digits.  so you could pump up to $10,000 worth of gas before you "roll over" the dollar amount.  I pulled into the gas station intending to put in $25 worth of gas, remembering when $12 would fill it up from running on fumes.  Another problem with $3 a gallon gas is that the dial for the dollar amount spins like a slot machine, while the one for how many gallons seems to sit, and trying to stop at $25 is a challenge.  I started pumping gas and did the usual stop at $23.75, pump some more and stop at $24 so anyone looking would think I was trying to top it off when in reality that would take probaly $40.  At $24.90 I'm going real slow and careful but alas wind up stopping at $25.01.  Not wanting to look poor I try for $25.50 and miss.  Finally at $26.55 I put the nozzle away and go pay for my gas.  Many times I think they have these pumps programmed not to stop on the even dollar just to get you to spend more -- they got an extra $1.55 out of me today.  I thought "what a scam"

I worked in fast food for 8 years, if you do anything long enough you get good at it. Like reaching into a meat freezer and grabbing exactly 12 pieces of meat without counting, or 3 pennies out of a cash drawer.  Another thing I learned from fast food was "is that a large coke" and of course  "do you want fries with that" .  

This got me to thinking about another "scam", the deli counter. Deli counters I think are slowly going the way of the neighborhood store which could be a bad thing.  Time was when you could go into a store ask for 3 or 4 slices of baloney and not feel bad about it, I'm not so sure people can do that anymore after all we would not want people to think we were poor would we?  So you go up to the counter ask for your pound of ham and the inevitable happens. You expect it to happen.  We think the person has been trained to do it.  It is their job. If they don't do it we might even feel a bit cheated -- OK we'd be surprised but not cheated.  They are slicing away and putting the meat on the scales and here it comes, the line you've been waiting for...

"Thats just  a little over, is that ok?"   In our mind we are thinking NO!!!!! IT'S NOT OK!!!  But not wanting to look poor or cheap we say sure.  

I have a friend who gets a mean streak on occasion, he'll go into a deli and ask for "just under a pound of ..." the person behind the counter gets a funny look and he explains that when they say it is just a little over he'll have the pound he really wanted and they can feel like they have sold him more than he wanted.  

I think thats they way it is with our society, TV, radio, magazines they fill our eyes, hearts and minds with way more garbage than we want or need and say "thats just a little over..."  I know because I've been sucked into the deal many times myself.  I'm not going to start a massive E-mail campaign, or ask you to forward this to everyone to show that you "really love God" but maybe just think about what's going on in your world and remember one of the last parts of the Lord's prayer "lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil"