everything comes at once

Yesterday after work I ran a couple of errands related to our son's upcoming wedding.

The first couple stops went well, but the third one...not so much.

I had to pick up paper for the wedding programs that will be printed on Monday.  So I attempted to do that without having Eric and Alyssa with me to approve it.


 And everything happened at once...

I have prescription sunglasses so I sometimes don't realize I still have them on when I go into stores.  After walking across the parking lot and into the store, finally finding the correct aisle and the card-stock, I realized I still had them on when I couldn't distinguish what color the paper was.  I was too mad at my oversight to go back out.  So I held the paper 2" from my face with glasses removed and tried to decide what was what.  My husband called to see where I was.  With husband on phone, I finally received assistance from a gigantic clerk-boy,  at the same time my purse randomly decided to fall apart hitting the floor sending the contents flying everywhere.  While I scrambled to grab lipgloss', gum and mints the clerk looked at me as if to beg dismissal and so I waved him away.  Recovering from the spill the phone back to my ear to continue talking to my husband who by now had hung up,  two texts came in one after the other.

One of the texts was from my son approving the kind of paper they wanted for their wedding program the answer coming after taking pictures on my camera and sending them for a decision, sadly I still had one more question "ivory or white".  I prepared that last question and hit send and the text would not go...with broken purse under arm, and glasses in hand I walked back to the front of the store by the windows trying to force the text.  Pacing back and forth looking for a 'zone' that would send it I nearly tripped over a ridiculously placed low display.  Finally 'sent' came up.  Back I went to the paper area of the store.

Next the girl who is doing the printing responded to my previous text which required me to lay everything back down yet again.

Then my son's text came "ivory please" and "thank you so much".  I took some solace in his appreciation.

Choice made I had one more moment of angst as I thought they only had one package of the kind of paper we chose, but back behind the shelf I spied one more.  SERIOUSLY, looking back on the situation I think I ran full blast to the checkout guy - who started pointing to every object on the entire display/cash register counter asking me if I needed any of them.   This was a moment of Christian decision, do I simply respond "no thank you" or rip his little head off...sorry.   I chose to retain my Christian-ese.

All this to say, I'm reconsidering technology and wondering if I should always just leave my phone, iPad and computer in the car while I shop...or eat...or go home...or everything.  It is sometimes just too much when everything comes at once!.