Won't you help to sing?

I left my apartment about an hour ago to go to a free-internet place.  The trick, of course, with free-internet places, is that I feel obligated to buy something when I am there.  So, even though the "somethings" that I buy at Nonna's are often expensive, I figured I'd go there (here), since I like the atmosphere there best.  To explain briefly, the staff here (minus one gentleman who is so genuine and innocent and perhaps even a bit clueless about his job) has never been overly friendly, and my experience with them this evening epitomized their lack of friendliness.  I asked to pay for the drink I didn't even want to buy and two of the guys exchanged glances with one another and one shook his head as he was putting my cash into the drawer (I guess the timing of my transaction caused him some sort of cash-register-inconvenience-also-known-as-the-end-of-the-world).  

My first inclination was to kill him with kindness, you know, and so I extravagantly threw my change into the tip jar.  Then when I sat down at my computer by the front window, anger slowly crept into me and I mentally listed all the logical arguments against the way they had treated me (a very "me" response).  I grew increasingly frustrated by the fact that one of the only cute places like this in Harrisburg can get away with terrible relations to their customers and I wished I had told the guy "never mind" and withheld my cash, picked up my stuff and left, to make a point.  But I hadn't, and so since I had already paid my dues, I stayed and interneted a while (and still am internetting), making sure to glare at the man who shook his head at me each time he came to "check on" the people dining at the table next to mine (no one has checked on me yet, obviously).  

A couple minutes ago, I smelled rain.  When I looked out the window, the sun was shining brightly over the whole neighborhood and rain was trampling all over the street.  As I watched it I felt the sudden desire to go and beckon the two men who had exchanged uncomfortable glances with and about me, and take them outside to watch and smell this strange and beautiful phenomenon.  I did no such thing, but the desire alone made me feel some kind of hope in the potential of redemption.

I am not very hesitant to think redemptive thoughts, and perhaps many would say I've been too quick to forgive.  But this is something I've given much though to as of late, wondering how to find the balance between doormat-dom and bitterness.  If I've found one answer, it is that everyone will feel very strongly about whatever they believe and if we only look to rules and logic, someone will criticize every time.  That is perhaps the proof that love is the only way we can progress and find any answers at all.  

Let's allow love to rule, shall we?