The Pity Me Blues

Photo: Everyone has bad days, just don't make them your life.

I love the blues. Given a choice of music, I’ll go blues, jazz, classical, depending on what I’m doing. Up here in the sublime mountains, I don’t get good reception (those peaks get in my way) but I just discovered Galaxy on my cable channels.

I’m in Heaven, a Lady Singing the Blues.

There’s one song I can sing too much, however: the Pity Me Blues.

I’m not saying the occasional breakdown isn’t warranted and even good for the soul—and tear ducks—but prolonged angst is a one-way trip down. That’s what I call the Pity Me Blues.

Take the older Safeway cashier the other day. I was headed to the self check-out when I saw him standing alone with no one in his lane. Thinking it would give him some company, something to do besides standing there bored, I plunked my basket on the conveyor belt and stepped up to the credit processing center with a smile as I got out my Safeway and credit cards.

Fixing me with an annoyed look, he barked, “So you want me to unload your basket for you?”

I was flummoxed. Defensive. Apologetic. I’m not good in accusatory situations anyway, my brain scrambling for why he was making me feel as if I’d done something wrong. Something that was Not. His. Job.

I covered my fluster by getting the cards ready as he picked my items out of the basket. He then said, “I guess I’ll have to put the basket back for you,” and brushed me back as he walked past to put the basket in the stack behind the conveyor belt.

There was still no one in his line. No one waiting. The whole store was pretty empty. I remarked about this and he said it was Monday and the storewide 10 percent off day was Tuesday. So besides making me feel like I’d demanded he do work that was not in his job description, he told me that I was either a forgetful idiot or a spendthrift.

Now I always use baskets. It’s my pathetic way of limiting what I buy to what I can carry and I have a sore elbow from lugging overloaded baskets around grocery stores. I have never been chastised for putting the basket on the belt. By anyone. At any store. Ever. Even when there are huge lines and not an empty store filled only with one disaffected clerk.

My rampageous imagination filled in his background: a former CFO either forced to work after being laid off (and who would want to lose an employee with his attitude, I wonder?) or retired and dissatisfied with his pension or working to pad his pension and fill his empty hours. Whatever his story, clearly he viewed the cashier job as a comedown, beneath him, and customers who didn’t act as he thought they should insulted him. He was singing the Pity Me Blues loudly and clearly. I never saw him again, but then I never looked. I didn’t go back to Safeway for a long time after that, preferring the friendlier store down the street.

My point, and I have one, is that everyone gets the blues, but only losers give them a permanent home. You can feel bad because you hit an unfair patch in life. Rage. Cry. Assign blame. Whine if you must.

Then get over it, get out and get on.

I can now let the tears fall, the frustration break out in sobs, the feeling of doom and gloom settle over my vision. I say “now” because I couldn’t always. I kept a rigid upper lip, a firm hand on the control knob. Now I know even cowgirls get the blues. Sometimes my energy and optimism are overwhelmed. I let them whelm until the storm is over and I can see the other side. Which is almost always another way to attack the issue, a new idea, a reset button to approach it or abandon it, whichever is better. Crying clears the brain. It’s pretty good at clearing dust from the eyes, too, so you can see that everybody faces the same fact: Life Ain’t Fair.

Singing the blues is great. I riff around the house all the time.

Just don’t let it slide into an endless Pity Me Blues loop. That’s not the blues, that’s just a bad attitude.