As you age, hopefully you learn to choose your battles. Some things that got “under your skin” now don’t even require a second thought. I have not always been the mild mannered man that I have think I am now.

Twenty years ago we were in the process of moving from an apartment into the home we now reside. I we had to shampoo the carpets at our apartment so I rented a Rug Doctor from a local grocery chain.

I shampooed the carpets and then decided I would drop the rented machine off early the next morning.

The next morning I picked up my buddy Todd and we headed to the grocery store. Todd headed over to the donuts and I walked with the machine up to the customer service counter. I told the clerk I was returning their machine. “Ok, did you clean it?” She asked. “Well, I’m not really sure what you mean by clean, there’s really nothing to clean but I did rinse out the water container,” I said. ” Most people clean it,” she said in a sarcastic voice. “As I said I’m not really sure what there is to clean,” I stated.”If there’s a problem we’ll call you,” she said grinning sarcastically. I had all I could take at 5:30 a.m., I stepped back, held out my arms similar to Andy in the movie “Shawshank Redemption,” and yelled at the top of my lungs,”THE FRIENDLIEST STORES IN TOWN!” I then motioned to Todd to put the donuts down, we were leaving.

I have shopped at the store many times but never have gone back to customer service. Today as I was paying my gas bill at the same counter I was at 20 yrears ago. I remembered how I had acted. I began laughing and told the clerk the story. I told her I wouldn’t be yelling today. She was very friendly and apologetic, she did a good job representing “The friendliest stores in town.”