Did I Just Get a Cheeseburger??? I Only Ordered a Tea!

Photo from Creative Commons - Aranami

Sometimes we are just plain mindless!  We get so wrapped up in other things in our minds that we go on autopilot.  What happened at the office?  What are we having for dinner tonight?  What do I still need to pick up at the store?  I wonder what homework the kids will have?  What time do they have guitar practice and cheer practice again?  Oh, shoot, I didn't pick up little Joey's guitar from home!

Today I was visiting with a friend when she shared just such a moment with me.  She stops every day and gets an iced tea from a local drive through.  Yesterday she pulled away and thought to herself, "Oops, they didn't give me a straw."  She had extras in the car so it wasn't an issue.  In a couple of minutes she thought, "Why does my car smell like food?"  With her extra straw in the cup she took a sip only to be surprised that it was soda and not tea.  Then she looked over in the passenger seat and saw a bag of food from the restaurant.  She was amazed that she could have been so zoned out and on serious autopilot that she took the bag of food from the drive through employee without even noticing. 

It makes for a good laugh later, but it can also be a good wake up.  Being mindful in our daily lives is not always easy, but we miss so much when we allow ourselves to become mindless instead :)  And, you know as well as I do that we all fall into the mindless category at times.  The key is try to be mindful more than mindless. 

(Thank you, Doc for sharing this story!)