Food....or Power?

Friday, April 22nd.

Something funny happened today. I experienced first-hand how food can change people's mood. There I was, standing in line at the CVS pharmacy counter, when the man in front of me gets barked at by the pharmacist, "May I help you?!" (It came across more like an attack, than a polite question.) The man, startled at first, responded by giving his last and first names; he was picking up a prescription. After retrieving the prescription (and asking the man to spell his extremely complicated name--Peter Baker--about 3 times), the pharmacist turned her attention, and her bad mood, to Peter again. "Do you have a CVS card?" He searches in his wallet. "CVS card??!!" Peter continues to search, feeling the pressure building. "May I have your CVS card, PLEASE?" He finally finds it (probably breathes an internal sigh of relief) and hands it over. "Thank you for shopping at CVS... NEXT!" I think to myself, "I wonder what she will do to me?" And I don't have to wait long to find out. "May I help you?!" I proceed to spell my last name..... very slowly (people usually don't get the L-K-O part). In the midst of my careful spelling, the pharmacist suddenly exclaims (with a hint of a smile), "Mmmhhmm, somebody's lunch smells sooooo good." "I think it may be mine, " I say quietly--I can't tell whether she is annoyed or pleased with the smell... and I certainly did not want to make her any more angry. (Ten minutes earlier I had bought a stir-fry lunch from the deli across from work and was carrying it in a plastic bag). She smiles, "That smells so good." And believe it or not, just the smell of that delicious lunch bought me her good mood (and graces) for the remainder of my time at the pharmacy. She was polite, friendly, albeit a little distracted by the "delicious smell"--she had to count my change about 3 times to ensure she hadn't made a mistake. So, it seems that she was just extremely hungry, and thus cranky. My conclusion--when foreseeing a situation in which you would need to interface with (infamous) customer service people, make sure something on you smells good........