Cracking More Than a Cream Egg.

I work at a Husky gas station located a slow four minute walk from my house. I don’t really pump gas because we no longer have full serve, so you might be wondering what I do in a regular day. I make sure the slurpee machines are working properly – although there is unavoidable smell of vomit and diaper coming from somewhere behind it – and check the levels of coffee. Once that is finished I’ll empty the garbage and do a quick look around the place to make sure it is up and running and then I retire; retire that is to my milk crates arranged in such a fashion that they stand tall as my yellow plastic throne, where I strategically read through the terrible celebrity gossip magazines, all of which contain the exact same trash for different price amounts, that I will continue to claim to want nothing to do with. I will sit on my throne for the next six hours as I wait until 9pm, where I will begin locking the outside and putting other unnecessary trinkets away for the evening. It’s weird because most days I don’t hate my job outside of all the illegal/unfortunate activities that take place that are out of my control; promised money not being paid, holiday and overtime pay never awarded, the constant selling of expired goods. I get to meet a lot of people in my neighborhood and while the money is nowhere near desirable it is something, and I really should be thankful.

But sometimes the monotony of the job gets to me. I get frustrated knowing that I’m going to work with this really nice guy named Natik, which is an automatic promise that the next eight hours will be a lesson in patience and understanding as we struggle to communicate in the same language. I get frustrated because I long so heavily to be spending time with my friends, to be laughing in sweatpants, going out for coffee, or even arguing about hockey. I lose my focus and in doing so, watch as any life that I did receive from my job falls to the ground choked of its meaning. My job then becomes a job; an obstacle in the way of my future, a means to an end. If I will just push hard on the plow, this summer will be over soon and I’ll have the money I need for whatever the next step looks like. Customers become a never-ending hassle as the words “do you have an CAA card” become my motto. They are so engrained in my speech pattern now that I will ask a customer two or even three times if they need a bag because the sentence just slips out, like a that person in your life that is overly blunt and has been trying to work on it, “sorry…it slipped.”

Person after person, item after item, minute after minute, I begin to stand there purposeless. But once in a while something will happen to rip me out of that grey existence and place the smile I have lost back on the lower center of my face.
A father and his daughter came in one evening and were buying snacks for some unknown purpose. They loved each other – I know I can only assume, but I’ll go out on a limb for this one. The rummaged around the isles looking for the perfect amount of sugar and flavor, and then with their hands full of candy they came to the till to pay. There I was a sullen statue waiting to ring them in. And then, the daughter reaches to her left and says “should we get Elliot a Crème Egg daddy?” In that moment my heart leapt to life, as if Brian McNamee himself had injected adrenaline into. I was caught off guard, as I was ripped out of my monotony and shown a ray of ife’s light. “You want to buy me a Crème Egg?” Let me clarify a little bit; I love the name Elliot, and to show my appreciation for the name I have worn it proudly as my name tag, training myself to respond to questions like, “how are you today Elliot.” And there it was sitting in the middle of the pile of candy, a delicious Crème Egg for me, for Elliot. It was a moment that reminded me of the language my heart speaks; blessings, philanthropy, ultimately love. I was alive once again with the glimmer of hope in my heart that had become so dim. Hope for the human race, a hope rooted in Him, a hope that said today does not have to be the lifeless memory it has been in the past.

And so as the father and daughter couple packed up all there candy, including the Crème Egg I was so earnestly staring at, a puzzled look crossed my face as I was left asking two questions: First, how great is our Lord that he would use something so simple to remind me of His greatness, His purpose, and His love, no longer allowing me to forget the beat of my own heart? And second, what are the chances that her brother’s name was Elliot?!