I had a good time the other day touring the San Diego Zoo with my girlfriend, Nancy. We had a two for one bus pass and got on top of the double-decker bus for a 30 minute tour. (Is this starting to sound just a little bit like Gilligan’s Island?)
Anyway, the line moved quickly and we were on the bus in no time at all. That should have been my first clue that something was up. 30 minutes later we still had not moved. I guess those fortunate enough to get on the bus early have to wait for every single seat to be filled. It reminded me of times I would fly home to the San Diego airport from the east coast or north west. Hopping on a shuttle, I would be the first to jump on and ask to be taken to Santee. First, the driver would circle the airport endlessly in the hopes of picking up more passengers. Unfortunately, Santee is quite a distance from the airport, the end of the line, in fact, and passengers were taken home, not in the order they got on the van, but in the order of the next closest neighborhood. This means I had the unique honor of being the first to get on and last to get off. Such thoughts were on my mind as I awaited the departure of Zoo Bus 707. I also thought about art, history, politics, the primary produce of Finland, and consistent time planes contrasted with alternate quantum realities. Much floats into the mind when eternity is your waiting companion. Finally, a pleasant sounding driver/tour guide crackled her voice over the intercom: “Hi ! My name is Terry and I will be with you for the next 30 minutes!”
I turned to Nancy and said, “She’s already been with us for 30 minutes.”
Nancy laughed. That’s why she’s my girlfriend. She laughs when I make little comments like that one.
We finally did take off and travel (I believe) for a whole 2 minutes before stopping again. Terry the Tour Guide explained: “We need to wait until security brings us a man who missed the bus and wants to be reunited with his family.” Nancy and I couldn’t believe our ears. We were going to stop because a man couldn’t get on board a bus on time? This bus? This bus which delayed its departure for so long we could have pitched a tent and brought out a Coleman lantern? And because he couldn’t get here on time, we had to delay a tour? He couldn’t get on the next bus? His family couldn’t get off the bus to join him?
Look, I believe in reuniting families, but this man hadn’t exactly been a prisoner in Zimbabwe for 12 years. He was merely late for a bus! If he were some little kid freaking out over being lost and separated from Mommy and Daddy, that would have been different, but this was a full grown man. It was at least another 10 minutes before the tearful reunion took place and Zoolander Express started its motor again.
This is the age we live in. The tail wags the dog:
– If a man misses a bus, it never occurs to anyone that he might just have to catch the next bus. Instead, people who boarded on time have to have their trip delayed.
-If one kid in school is allergic to peanut butter, nobody is allowed to eat it.
-If only a handful of people feel threatened by a cross on the hill or a public manger scene, nobody else gets to look at it either.
As a Christian, I do believe in mercy and I am more than happy to extend flexibility for unique circumstances. I also believe our culture has become so over sensitive, so guilt ridden, and so unfamiliar with common sense, that we quickly bow to the absurd. This may be carrying the “compassion” just a little too far. (Or at least further than that zoo bus seemed to be traveling.) We bend over backwards to make things convenient for one customer and never seem to notice that in doing so, we just made matters incredibly inconvenient for about 50 other customers. Usually these are the 50 who played by the rules, an excellent example of compassion misplaced.
While waiting for Ozzie to be reunited with Harriet, David and Ricky, our tour guide repeated words I had heard so many times before on the runway, where the pilot explained that we are the tenth in a series of planes ready to take off but that we will be off in “just a few minutes” or restaurants where waitresses were explaining that my long awaited order was “coming right up.” Here are the magic words: “We appreciate your patience.”
OK. This was only a zoo ride and not important enough to make a scene. So I didn’t, but I did use my imagination (because I sure had time to use my imagination) In another life, I might have said, “Terry the Tour Guide; please don’t thank me for patience which doesn’t actually exist. Instead, why not try something new: Apologize for the lunatic decisions which contribute to understandable impatience.” Now that might be a refreshing tour in the zoological gardens of life.
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