Manners...

I call this my Spanish connection. Sometimes it takes a far away place to teach us some very basic yet very important thing in life. Manners. So I was in one of these open markets in downtown Madrid. There were stalls selling beautiful, colorful, gorgeous postcards. And oh how I wanted to buy them all. I went in to one that had the biggest selection. I proceeded to pick this, pick, that, and oh wait, this is nice too, and oh this one...I ended up having a dozen or two gorgeous ones in my hands. I approached the owner/vendor/cashier to pay for my selections. Sadly, I did not have enough pesetas on me, nor did I bring enough dollars. This was 1978, I did not have credit/debit cards then. With what money I have I can only buy half of my selection. I paid, he bagged my purchase and I proceeded to return the unpurchased postcards in one slot. Meanwhile I was being watched. The owner took the postcards and returned each one by one in its respective spot while murmuring "la cosa mas importante, no tienen". Was I blushed, I could not speak a word. I walked out and sat myself in the plaza thinking hard, really hard. Why did I do that? It does not take forever to put those cards back  where they belong? I got to America and saw how rampart this habit was. We tend to put tons of things in our cart, and once we decide we don't want some of them, we conveniently just leave them where we happen to see a spot. Most of the time we would not bother to go back to that aisle where the items belong. It's Christmas and shopping is hectic, watch how many people do this and think to yourself, "is this the right thing to do"? If you feel like it is not, then please take the time to return things where they belong. It will make you feel better. Happy Christmas shopping!!!