I always buy with my American Express card.  It’s easy and I get points that I’ve never used.

I swipe my credit card, put it away, and wait to sign for my purchase at JC Penny. Instead of wanting my signature, the little swipe machine wants me to show the sales associate my credit card. Darn.

“I’ve got it here somewhere.  Hold on.”

I start fumbling through the mess in my purse.

How can I have a mess?  I’ve got a case for lipsticks, nail files, dental floss, lotions, and antibacterial.  I’ve got another case for cough syrup, magnifying mirror, Q-tips, tape measure, roll-on deodorant, and a bottle of uncoated 21 mg. aspirin for heart attack symptoms.    What is all this extra junk in here…receipts, beef sticks, gum, a squirt gun, hairspray… where’s the credit card?

“I just swiped it.  Sorry.  It’s in here somewhere.”

I’m furiously digging through debris.

The sales associate breaks my concentration, “It’s alright.  I don’t need it.”

I thank her and mumble something about being sure it’s in my purse as I grab the sack.

“Are you leaving?” she asks.  “Don’t you want to find your credit card?”

“No.  If I stopped what I was doing every time I couldn’t find something, I’d spend half my day in lockdown. “

I listed my home with a realtor a while back and he wanted a house key.  I couldn’t find one.   I spent about six hours putting a new lock on the front door.   I gave the key to the relator, but forgot to make a duplicate key.  I try to have duplicates of things that if lost could cause tachycardia.  I have an extra set of car keys, an extra month of Rx drugs, lots of shoes, hair brushes, and reading glasses.

Almost everything I own has been lost at least once.  I’ve been looking for the car charger for my cell phone for a few weeks.  I didn’t loan it to anyone or take it out of the car, but it’s gone.  I lost my Dust Buster, a little hand-held vacuum, about a year ago.  I bought a new one last week.   I’m lucky that I don’t get too attached to my stuff.  All of it could be gone tomorrow.

Fear: A loss of control over what is pending causing a sense of doom, therefore halting further action.

It must be a common emotion, why else would we hear “frozen in fear”?  Once frozen, it can take seconds or years to thaw.  Sometimes it never happens.  It depends on the perceived consequence of a wrong choice.

Some people are frozen solid.  They exhaust me.  “Where do you want to go for dinner?  Do you want to see a movie?  Which one?  Want to go to Vegas?  Do you believe in euthanasia, like M&Ms, prefer dogs or cats?  Frozen people never have an opinion.  Pleasing everyone is more important than having an opinion.

My friends say what they feel.  They trust me to remain their friend even if they are tree-hugging Democrats who are more worried about the life-span of a gnat and global warming than sex-trafficking and genocide.   They accept people like me who vote Republican and believe we should teach people to fish hoping they buy a lake house so we have a place to share “deep thoughts”.   We love each other.  And, we argue long enough to see each others absurd reasoning.

Frozen people are sometimes a nuisance, but they can be included in groups, unlike the immoral, selfish, narcissistic, sociopaths, who try to pass themselves off as caring people, while inflicting physical or emotional abuse on anyone who will accept it.  They need their own planet.

But for all the good people…  Let’s not be frozen in fear.  Let’s have fun, say what we think, love our diversity, and accept that 89.5% of the time I’m right.