Free Lunch

Our ward hosts a free lunch every month for the homeless at one of the local homeless shelters. I signed up to bring cookies, along with two other girls. Our plan was to get together, make the cookies, and then one of us drive them over while the other two watched the kids. I was the one who ended up driving the cookies over. When I got there, the sisters who had volunteered to serve the food were in a panick because the missionaries hadn't shown up and they needed more people to help. I called my friends and ask if it was ok if I stayed and helped while they watched Alice. I was actually kind of excited to have a break away from Alice and to be doing something meaningful, that is, until I started serving!

One of the rules of the shelter is that only the servers can touch the food and the serving utensils, including the salad dressing bottles. I was in charge of serving the salad and salad dressing. The first woman that came through the line was very upset when I told her I needed to pour her salad dressing for her. Let's just say she wasn't very nice about it and ended up grabbing the bottle from me. After that, I had a hard time serving people because my hands were shaking so badly. Thankfully, not everyone was like that, though I heard quite a bit more complaining, and got lessons on how to pour salad dressing without it coming out in big clumps. One guy couldn't get over the fact that we didn't have blue cheese dressing and kept on telling me we really needed to bring some next time. I really wanted to make a comment about how beggars can't be choosers but decided to hold my tongue.

Pretty early on, the coffee machine ran out of coffee, which also upset a lot of people. None of us knew how to make coffee and we couldn't find the building manager, so not many people got coffee. Needless to say, I was surprised at how few people said thank you and how many people complained. It made me think about how, as a society, we sometimes take things for granted. One of the first things I thought of was government assistance during Hurricane Katrina and how not many people made preparations on their own, assuming the government would provide for them. I started thinking about things in my life that I may take for granted. Like parents who paid for my education and gave me a car, and who are flying us home for Christmas. Or all the people in the ward who plan great activities, talks and lessons. And a wonderful husband who gives me back massages even when he's tired. Anyways, just some things I've been thinking about lately...