No Nuggets? Get the President on the Phone, NOW!

Sigh.

Sometimes you just have to wonder...

http://www.tmz.com/2009/03/03/mcnugget-crisis-ends-with-woman-behind-bars/

Now, look. I'm not unsympathetic to the whole "I can't get a refund" cause. I get annoyed when I take an inferior product back to the place at which it was purchased, only to be told that I can't get a full refund for the faulty merchandise. I paid real money for it; I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for real money back. It's as simple as that. And sometimes, I don't want store credit; if that particular store has sold me junk once, shame on them. If I go back to that same store and spend the same amount of money on junk again, well...shame on me. In a BIG way. So I feel for this lady and the frustration she must have felt when she was offered something the store had but she didn't want in place of something she wanted but couldn't have.

However, the lack of Chicken McNuggets does not constitute an emergency, no matter how hungry you are. And while the restaurant employees probably should have been a little more helpful and a bit less cranky, missing McNuggets simply do not justify a 911 call.

But the story made me think a bit about myself (yes, I can turn even a ridiculous story like this into a moment of personal and theological reflection). I wonder if my friends, after hearing me complain about some "crisis" in my life, ever think "THIS was the big emergency? THIS is what I woke up at 3:00 AM to hear you gripe about?" Even worse, I wonder if God ever takes a 911 call like this from me, a call that makes God want to gather everyone around so that God can tell one of those "you won't BELIEVE what happened to me today" stories.

I'm quite sure it has happened. Probably more than once. Today.

Maybe what the McNugget queen needed was a healthy dose of "move on medicine." If so, I probably need a year's supply.

So, here's what I personally take away from this story: I hope that I can be a bit more reflective about my life, and stop turning every little bump in life's road into a matter of national security. Stuff happens. I can't avoid it, but I can learn to deal with it. And more importantly, perhaps, I can learn to get over it. Because most of the things that seem like crises to me are nothing more than small inconveniences when compared to things like:

Poverty.

The AIDS crisis.

Broken homes.

Broken lives.

Starvation.

I think I have it pretty good. And I know I should be more thankful.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a phone call to make. It seems that my Ziploc bag is neither zipping nor locking, but that will change once I get President Obama to take up my cause.

Later.