What a wretched man I am.

I took the personal journey tool a while back and my lowest "C" was character. I'll explain what that last sentence means at some point but the following story is the reason why.

Let me set the stage. I work at a church. Our church has a kitchen. I don't like to prepare food to eat and therefore often don't eat lunch, or other meals. On days when my day has stretched into the early afternoon without a noon meal I venture up to said kitchen to see if anyone has left some food. You see, with a lot going on at our church there are often leftovers. Some lasagna from yesterday's elder meeting, a vegetable tray from a Hearts at Home lunch and raw onions from someone who gives the staff bags and bags of raw onions.

Today, at 2:45PM I decided to venture upstairs and check the kitchen. There are two routes to get to the kitchen. There is the main-church-hallway/walk-past-the-staff-mailboxes/receptionist-desk route and the through-the-smaller-sanctuary back route. Because I don't want fellow staff members to realize I'm an above-average kitchen-checker I almost always use the back route. Then, I can listen outside the door to see if people are inside. If I hear voices, I usually scram. I can't let people know I was there. I prefer to do my kitchen sneaking in a, well, sneaky way.

By the time I reached the kitchen, at approximately 2:46, I realize I am in luck. On the counter is the better part of a chocolate cake (not really my style), a browning salad bowl of...salad, and two doughnuts. I probably shouldn't eat straight sugar on an empty stomach so after eating one doughnut I get a bowl of salad. I check the refrigerator for dressing, check. I see if there is any pop, check--some coupla-day old Diet Coke. I'm not above that. After chitchatting with some other kitchen guests (shoot, they saw me!) I'm again alone in the kitchen. I'm not proud of what happens next. Remember the two doughnuts? The two doughnuts in the kitchen for this staff of fifty people? The, I'm-lucky-there-was-any-food-at-all-three-hours-after-lunch-why-can't-you-share-you-selfish-doughnut-mongering-pig doughnuts, yeah, I ate both.

Someday, maybe when I'm fifty, I'll be 'that guy' that walks into 'that' situation and doesn't take all remaining food in sight simply because no one will ever know. 'That guy' will share 'then.' Until 'then,' the only sharing I'm doing is here, hoping to get some release from my guilty conscience.

This entry was posted by Josh Mann, on Friday, December 5, 2008. WEIGH IN.