A Confession

The following was written at 4am this morning:

I have a confession to make. And I can’t sleep because of it. So I will confess it in a blog entry, which I will post later in the day b/c I don’t have internet right now. I was working last night: the closing shift which ends at 1am. There had been a lot of frappucinos and I HATE making lots and lots of frappucinos. I think they are inefficient and irritating. Around midnight (closing time) I was grouchy and tired. I was putting away the patio, sweeping, stacking chairs, wiping tables, and moving everything inside. A guy approached me and asked if we (Starbucks) had any food we could give him. He was a young guy, seemed clean, but had his arms wrapped around his middle. And because I was busy and grouchy and tired, AND because I didn’t know what the Starbucks policy was on something like this, I said ‘No, we’ve already thrown it out’ (which was true). There was a desperate look on his face for a moment, but he accepted my answer, and moved away. I didn’t feel guilty at all.

As I continued putting the patio sets away, I noticed that he was talking with another customer, but I didn’t know what about. They spoke for a while, and I didn’t pay attention to him anymore, but I was thinking about the pastries we had thrown away, and began to wonder if I ought to have checked with my shift supervisor, or just given him one out of the donation bag to SHARE (these are leftover pastries that we donate, but in this case, SHARE hadn’t picked them up for two days, so most of the pastries are three days past their ‘expiry’ date).

Then all of a sudden, the same guy is right there again, asking me if I was sure that we didn’t have anything. Taken off guard, I reverted back to my lie and said ‘No, the ones in the pastry case are the ones we can still sell and I can’t give those away (that is true). The others have been thrown out.’ I said it kindly, and put a I’m-very-sorry look on my face, but he persisted: ‘but do you throw them out in one bag?’ And here was my THIRD chance to help him. But I didn’t want to try and explain to my supervisor, so I stuck to it and said that we put the pastries with other things. This was also true, but there was that donation bag I could have gone to, and there was the individually-wrapped breakfast sandwiches that I could have gotten (which would have been fine), and I could have talked it over with my supervisor.

I am so ashamed. “When I was hungry, you did not feed me.” “But Lord, when did I ever see you hungry?”

He was hungry tonight, and I failed Him.