Moment Theft Collective

“ Well, I guess he thinks his time is more valuable than mine.”

I heard it as I pushed my cart through a bottle neck caused by a shopper in Costco adjudicating the free taste tests trying to determine which she should try…..while her cart blocked all from passing. Her tone dripped with venom and she hissed it under her breath, but loud enough for me and a select few to hear.  Of course I didn’t just plow into the crowd, I was polite and using the voice of power said “Excuse me.” and when that didn’t work, slightly louder “Please push your cart to the side so others can pass.” This is when she complied, but just the same, could not help but strike back as I walked by.

I have been thinking about this phrase since the fateful pre-Thanksgiving day.  Frankly, and for the record, my time is worth more than hers.  In fact my time is worth more to me than your time, whoever you are.  Obviously, I’m not talking billable hours here.  If that were the case there are certainly people who are wealthier and more sought after professionally than I am.  


When is something of yours less valuable to you than something belonging to someone else?  You would certainly prefer another’s roof to leak rather than your own, and I’m sure you value your own life more than that of a random stranger.

News Flash! My life is finite, so is yours.  We place a value on life because it is finite and that value can be measured in time.  We can use accomplishments and dollars and family and vacation to measure life value as well but I think you will find that those things are also dependent on time.  Our time has value, my time has value to me and by default things of value that I have are worth more to me than things of value that you have.  We all defend what is ours. 

So I submit that regardless of the calculated dollar value of my finite time on this planet, every minute waiting for someone to choose which sausage sample to eat, is a waste of my time.  Waste is the wrong term, it implies I had the time and chose to give it away poorly.  That does happen, but in this case my time, my valuable time, was stolen by another.  

We all know you can’t retrieve a moment lost, and I choose to take action, and reduce my future losses by asking the lady to move.

It occurs to me now, that the others in the traffic jam just waited, not saying anything; sheeple.  Perhaps they don’t value their own time, which scares me because who has so much time that it losses value?  (I have a hard time trusting people who are not in a hurry.) Maybe the others were also waiting for the sausage bite (carnivorous sheeple?)

I think the congested masses didn’t say anything because they were trying to be polite. 

Polite! That is ridiculous.  How is it polite to allow a selfish individual who has already stolen moments, to continue to steal more moments from hapless shoppers?  Why is it polite to allow the dumbness to continue, at the expense of all, so one sausage snacker can contemplate the difference between maple flavor and traditional?  In fact by not doing anything themselves, they have become accomplices.

I have lost my moment; others did as well, gone from our lives. We can’t reclaim it.  What we can do is modify our approach to limit the Thieving Moment Collective by applying a bit of consideration.  

Those of you with drive and purpose, it is your duty to step up in these situations and attempt to take corrective action, ask people to move, correct the dumbness as a gesture to the future. Those of you with less focus please have regard for others as you peruse the pork products.  Kindly pull your cart to the side, make way for those of us who are moving with a purpose.  Walk in the direction that your head is turned. If you like to see the items on the left, please move left to see them, rather than swerving down the center of the isle.  Be considerate and open your purse before the total is delivered and don’t organize the mini wallet while we all wait in line…these few tips are time savers, and depending who is behind you, life savers.