…self check

Journal,
Challenges encourage me to take stock of my life with military precision. I reevaluate and perform a self-check.
"Do I have what it takes for this particular challenge?" "Am I prepared for what is to come?" "Most importantly, how do I marshal the troops to assist?"
Challenges, even national emergencies, require meticulous planning and of course a trip to the supermarket!So, off I go, T.

It’s deceptively alluring, the promise at the self-check-out. “It’s easy, just Scan, Sack and Scram.”

I try to ignore the voice in my head saying, “Don’t go there”.

To me,
You know that I don’t listen to the voices in my head. I ignore their advice, because I can’t sort out the devil on my left shoulder from the well-meaning advisors on the right.
I’m not sure which of them are acting as rescuers from my misadventures. Is it a guardian angel rescuing me, or the devil, assured that I'll make even more mistakes. T.

At the superb-market, I stand in the check-out line long enough that the enticement becomes too much and I can ignore the prompting no longer! I wander over in front of the machine. I can self-check! How hard can it be? “Welcome, please begin scanning.”

Wow! I’m here and it’s all-knowing. I eye my cart… I have fruit, which can be a toughie for even a seasoned checker, but I persist. Other hazards threaten to complicate things, one item has no UPC code, another has two, and while I am waiting, “Please wait for assistance,” I must remember not to lean on the bag scale, “Please remove unscanned item.”

Journal,
I ignored the voices as a coping tool that I perfected back in the era of questioning four-year olds. I am at that stage again, in my life where I need to tune in to the noise, just in case the utterance may be the rare voice of the teenager.
If I continue these self-checks, I’ll catch what is really important and be more in tune with my true self, then I can always bury the listening skills until I need them again as a grandmother.
Kick me, T

I’m now hearing more voices in my head, “Please rescan item,” “Please place scanned item in the bag.” “Please wait to remove bag from shelf,” “Please stop banging your head against the credit card sweep.”

At this point, I’m just passing stuff across the all-knowing, all-seeing window and flinging it haphazardly in the general direction of my cart while the machine intones over and over, “Please step away from the booth and keep both hands in the air.”

I leave the store with my sanity barely intact and as I race to the car, from a distance I push one button to shut off the alarm, another to unlock the doors and still another to open the back hatch. I have James Bond’s car that starts itself and picks him up at the door—at least I’m sure mine would, if I could just figure out the remote. But, just now though, the doors are flapping open and shut, up and down and it’s like a great bird, struggling to catch wind.

Journal,
Writing is a great self-check. As I try to make sense of myself, I can see many things in retrospect that I should change. There are many more self-checks that I should perform daily. My big mouth is the most important. Why can’t I put it into check? Why can’t I just muzzle it? T.

Reality Bite: Could be because I abandoned the roll of duct tape in the store cart.

I manage to slide into the vehicle between door slams, and as I tame the fracas and settle myself in, I hear another unearthly voice, “Please secure the safety belt.” And the thought crosses my mind… "Around my neck?"

Reality Bite: I guess I don’t have to worry about hearing voices until I start doing anything I’m told.