Shopping in the Kingdom (a dream)

I had a dream......

On another planet, there is a kingdom; a glorious kingdom in which all the citizens live forever in peace. All who apply and are accepted for citizenship in this kingdom must first acquire some things. All of these things can be acquired from the only kingdom store which has been provided through great personal sacrifice of The Kings son. This store has some very unique features.

First, the unheard of value. There is no cost for any item in the store; there are checkout stations, but there is no charge for anything. Second, the unusual shopping. The King has decreed that every customer must select one of every item in the store; no one can checkout if their cart is not complete with one of each item. Third, the exuberant greeter. Every customer coming into the store gets uniquely greeted by a personal assistant; a guide who knows that specific customer perfectly, even better than the customer knows himself. That guide stays with that customer through the whole shopping experience and helps select items to put into the cart.

Generally, each person pushes his own cart thorough the entire store, but sometimes the guide helps by giving the cart a nudge in the right direction. Also it is considered courteous in all The Kings realm for customers to offer a helping hand to fellow customers when they are in need. Above this, The King has appointed certain special customers to have brightly colored shopping carts that let them be more easily observed by other customers in the store. Their special job while in the store is simply to be good examples; visibly submitting to their personal guide, allowing their guide to direct their shopping. They correctly demonstrate leadership in other small ways too, like pointing out hard-to-find items, or stretching for top-shelf items that are too high for shorter customers to reach on their own, or helping to get a cart moving again if someone gets stuck. The other customers that observe this modeled behavior are encouraged to do the same things and everyone in the store is blessed by it. This is The King's design. I have heard that even the security personnel who observe everything through the ceiling mounted cameras rejoice when they see this happening. You gotta’ love our thoughtful King.

The store is thoughtfully laid out, like one might expect, in such a way to be most efficient for most customers. the usual way upon entering the store is to start to the left, in aisle 1, where you find the sturdy, rigid, more durable items that can tolerate the load of all the other things being piled on top in the cart. Going through the store in the normal way makes shopping the most efficient, since some things work together in such a way as so you need to have a certain item in your cart just to be able to pick up a different item in another part of the store. The guide is an invaluable helper for these circumstances. Most folks take this route it seems, working their way sequentially through the store, aisle by aisle, and end up at the check-out on the far right side of the store. Even though the guide knows that the customer is going to eventually get one of everything in the store, he helps select items to be put into the cart in a specific order; one that properly loads the cart and is in the best interest of the customer. Sometimes the guide knows a person will benefit by starting in a different aisle and going through the store in an unconventional way. It is not uncommon to observe the guide directing his customer by an unusual route, however. I watched one customer being pushed very quickly down aisles 1 & 2, but then pulled over to go very slowly down aisles 6, 7, and 8, returning to aisles 3, 4, &5 later just because that was better for that person. They still got one of everything in the store, but in a different order than expected. It has been told of some starting on the far-right side of the store picking up items from aisle 10 first before selecting anything from any other aisle. This is very unusual, but the guide really knows what he is doing; He has never been wrong.

All this The King has provided and arranged in His wisdom; the store, the items in it, the guides, and the leaders with the brightly colored shopping carts, and the security personnel just because he loves his subjects. Because this whole arrangement has all been very well thought through in advance by The King, the best way to get through the store is to leave your own ideas outside, relax, and just trust the King’s guide to walk you through it. If we are willing, He even offers us his own personal cart, which is very easy to push and the load always seems very light in it. All this free help is very hard for some folks to accept and too often they insist on using their own carts and bringing some of their old ways of doing things into the store with them. This only makes shopping more difficult. When the guide suggests a certain item, some say to the guide “I really don’t want that right now, thank you. I know I’ll eventually have to get one, but I think I’ll just come back and get it later. There is so much here that I do want, I really want to get those items first, if you don’t mind.” The guide is very gracious, and even though it grieves him to hear it, and causes him extra work, and he often has to make changes to the original plan to accommodate the willfulness of the customer, knowing that every customer will only check-out when the cart has one of everything in it, the guide remains unshaken by the customer’s obstinacy. He just keeps leading in the best possible way for his customer.

Even though all the customers get the same information coming into the store; all know that everyone gets one of every item in the store, all realize that each customer has an individual guide who really knows the best way to load the cart, and many (if not most) have even learned the hard way of the added difficulties that come when the guide is not trusted, still I have noticed something going on in the store that seems unwise. Some customers still want to look into other customers shopping carts and compare the contents of their own cart against the other persons. It is really hard to say why they (we) do this. Very rarely would there be the exact same items in any two carts at any given moment; no one would expect there to be. What is the sense in comparing then?

• One might rationalize that by comparing carts, one could determine if they have the right stuff in their own cart. Of course this makes no sense since many are guided through the store by different routes and there is no way of knowing who is being led by what route so there is no way of knowing exactly what should be in someone's cart.
• Another might rationalize that by comparing carts I can see if the other customer is lacking anything and I can help them find it. This seems to forget that the other person has a perfect guide who knows them even better than they know themselves. On their best day, no one could know what a person's cart is lacking better than that persons guide.
• Some might think that the more information we can collect on the contents of customers carts, we can actually improve the layout of the store and help future customers through it more easily. But since the store layout is a design of The King, I doubt it can be improved upon.
  
• One might rationalize that because The King gave them a brightly colored cart, inspecting carts is part of the obligation. But that's really not the job of those with brightly colored carts, is it?. Aren't bright cart customers supposed to be leading the other customers by modeling the very things that everyone is supposed to be doing. Remedial cart inspecting is not one of those things, right? It is the guides responsibility to lead the customer in filling the cart properly and in the right order because only the guide knows what is supposed to be in there at the time.
  

In fact, I can’t really see any good reason for “cart inspecting”, even though I admit I have done it and possibly we all do it or have done it from time to time. It seems to be just one of those ideas we should have left outside the store, but thought it might come in handy if we brought it with us. Imagine how dishonoring and disrespectful this must be to the King and to His guide.

Oh great and wonderful King. Thank you so much for accepting us into your Kingdom. Thank you for the store, for all the items you have made for us to put into our carts, and for your Son who provided it for us. Thank you for the personal guide who leads us through our shopping in a perfect way. And thank you for those you have appointed to push the brightly colored carts and to show us by example the best way to shop under the direction of your personal guide. Thank you.



I wake