America's "Drive-Thru" Mentality!
By Debbie Daniel (10/15/03)
Our “drive-thru” lifestyle has become a way of life.
We get perturbed when we´ve opted to “drive-thru” the fast food facility and they don´t GET IT RIGHT. We drive away from the window, check our order, and then start fuming that our hamburger does not have the bacon on it. We get irritated at mistakes and want people to get it right . . . for ME.
When it´s “ME”, we want it right and don´t want to be delayed with any leftover concerns that would cause us to get out of our car, go into the fast-food restaurant and get the order corrected.
Yet our lives aren´t perfect either. The same situation can happen when we return to our offices and forget to take care of a customer´s request, but that doesn´t count. It only counts when it´s about ME!
We want it, and we want it now, and it better be done right!
For instance, we felt that we should go to Iraq, “drive-thru” and come back victorious. No going back in to get the pickles or cheese that was left off.
We wanted a clear victory by just “driving thru;” no residuals, and if there were any . . . that would make us angry. We should have won that major combat clearly. No hanging around to give support and no lives lost by terrorist snipers who hide and pick off Americans. If we had known the entire Iraqi country was infiltrated by terrorists who wanted to kill Americans, we would have never gone in and stirred up that hornet´s nest, would we?
If you have a hornet´s nest hanging from the soffit of your home, do you leave it alone until you get stung? No, you take care of it before it gets larger. By not doing so, you compromise your safety -- maybe your life -- and the safety of your children while in the comfort of your yard.
What are you thinking?
When your child is diagnosed with cancer, don´t you want the doctor to go in and try to cut out as much of the cancer as possible? Sometimes we find that it spread more than we were told, but it was important to go in and see what was there. Are you upset that the doctor should have known exactly how much it spread and how dangerous it was before he or she cut your child open?
Maybe you should have waited awhile to see if the cancer was really going to attack your child in more painful ways.
And the cost? Didn´t the doctor give you an itemized list of the cost before he ever started the procedure? Would you shy away from trying to save your child´s life because it might cost too much? Should you have never gone in and tried to eradicate what cancer you knew about?
Does it really cost too much to save a child from cancer? Does it cost too much to save a nation from terror? How do you put a price tag on either?
There´s a cancer out there that wants to kill us. It´s called terror, executed by terrorists, and they´ve already infiltrated our country and changed our lives forever.
I hear that we should not have gone in and stirred the pot in Iraq. The Iraqis hadn´t done anything to us . . . just leave them alone. Let that nest hang from your house. Walk tentatively around it. Shhhh!
We “drove-thru”, ostensibly won the major combat, but the Iraqi people couldn´t get the “orders” right. Didn´t they understand we did our part, now they needed to do theirs? . . . it was up to them? We´re outta´ here!
It took us six years to stabilize Japan after World War II, but we were upset after four months that Iraq didn´t become an instant democratic success. What went wrong? Didn´t the Iraqis know we needed to move on and work on more important issues for ourselves . . . such as our economy?
Things were just fine . . . we only lost twin towers with nearly three thousand dead in Manhattan, a damaged Pentagon that took a few hundred more lives, and a big hole in Shanksville, Pennsylvania that instantly became the burial ground for many more. But I´m OK, so why do we need to go stir up a hornet´s nest.
If it was wrong to free the people of Saddam´s tyranny, it was also wrong to free the Jews of Hitler´s tyranny. Which is it; we can´t have it both ways?
We´re angry that the president responded to “faulty” British intelligence that said Saddam Hussein HAD weapons of mass destruction, yet we´re also angry that the president DIDN´T respond to intelligence that revealed Al Qaeda would attack the U.S. Just exactly what is it that we want the president to respond to?
He can´t be all things to all people at all times and make everything all right. Yet, that´s exactly what we expect him to do.
Mr. President, I´ll have a life of prosperity, ample peace, and lots of happiness. I´ll pick it up at the next window and you better get this order right.
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