(Originally posted on February 29, 2009)

This afternoon I was rude to the security guard at the front gate of my condo complex. I had broken my don’t-let-yourself-get-hungry rule, had left the house two hours prior for a hair appointment that had to be rescheduled due to my having been caught in traffic, and had neglected to pack my usual small bag of almonds. And so, when I drove up next to the guard station and the new guard came dashing out, hands raised, asking me to stop, I kind of freaked out. I rolled down my window and without even thinking said, “I live here,” in a tone that could have peeled paint. “Oh yes, I know,” said the man, politely, “But where is your sticker?”

For my parking sticker, you see, was on the opposite side of the dashboard, rather than taped to the left side, as it should have been. There was no way for him to have seen it, as he was on the left side of the car. So what do you suppose I did?

I pointed. Dramatically. “It’s right there,” I said, like a petulant thirteen-year-old.

“Oh, yes, I see it now, I’m sorry,” he said.

In the two minutes it took me to get to my parking spot and reach my front door, I died about a million times. I had been shockingly rude to someone whose was doing exactly as he was being paid to do. (And I recalled all the times I’ve rolled my eyes when the security guards here have let my guests in without even letting me know they’re on their way. Why can’t they do their jobs?) He had been polite to me. No, he had apologized to me. Because times are tough and jobs are hard to find. The people are terrible sometimes, I pictured him telling his wife in their language, but you just have to apologize often and they calm down.

With no warning, I had become the enemy. An Ugly American. One of the Entitlement Brigade. The complete opposite of what my parents had raised me to become. And I wanted to disappear.

I had lunch (crucial, obviously). I put on workout clothes. Then I walked up the hill to the guard gate. The same man was in the middle of what seemed to be a very confusing situation, talking to another guard on the walkie-talkie and to a third party on the phone. Nevertheless, he looked over at me and said, “Yes, how can I help you, ma’am?” I died yet again. “Oh no,” I said, smiling and bowing my head, “When you’re finished.” He nodded and bowed his head in return. When he finished, he said, “Yes, ma’am?”

“I just wanted to apologize,” I said. “I was so rude earlier, and I am so sorry. I was late [this was to spare myself the deep-seated fear of having to discuss the concept of me, eating, with a perfect stranger--and because anyway, being late is just as bad an excuse for rudeness as being hungry] and I was so rude to you. I apologize. You were only doing your job, and we very much appreciate that [apparently my phone network had joined me? I dunno.].”

“Oh! No, it’s okay,” he said. “Only that your sticker was on the other side, and…”

“I know!” I said miserably. “I didn’t tape it to the left side, it was completely my fault, not yours. I’m sorry.”

“It is no problem,” he said. “But please try to put the sticker on.”

“I will! Thank you.”

“Thank you.” He nodded. We smiled at one another and I walked my miserable self around the neighborhood for the better part of an hour.

Here’s what really gets me: the reason traffic had been so bad earlier, when I was trying to get to the hair salon, was that there had been a terrible accident. The flattened, crumpled remains of a very expensive convertible were shocking enough (I still can’t picture what must have happened; it looked as though a boulder had fallen on it), but the sight of two arms limply reaching up from within the cavity, as six men worked together to cut and lift the body out and onto a waiting stretcher? That’s going to stay with me for a long time, like the body I saw on a traffic divider once, as a child, of a man who had just been hit by a car and was now lying motionless. I knew he was dead. I prayed for him for miles after we’d passed him, but I knew he was dead.

Despite all that–still! I let my annoyance and my impatience get the best of me, and I abused someone working, for all intents and purposes, in my employ.

I can hear what maybe some of you might think: Oh, let it go, you’re not that important, do you really think one bitchy woman ruined this man’s life? I’m not that important, no, and I very much doubt that I did much to that man other than make him roll his eyes. But that’s not why this matters. It matters because I think one is either part of the problem or part of the solution. If I’m not giving, I’m taking. And I try very hard, though I know my efforts come up short all too often, to give more than I take.

This is why minutia matters to me. Our lives are made up of a million tiny particles that gravitate toward one another, like grabbing like. I’ve got a rich tapestry of flaws, God knows (and so does anyone who’s met me). I want there to be more generosity, more love, more kindness in there, so that those particles can hang onto one another and grow. We’ve all heard the expression “garbage in, garbage out,” but the opposite holds true as well: the more good we output, the more good we want to input. And that changes us. And the people around us. And the world.

It matters. It all matters.