No blame, no shame. We're all just stumbling through.

Make the way brighter for someone else.

            The Facebook world got a good laugh over a woman named Sharon who became famous for burning her Thanksgiving pie and blaming Marie Callender.

            The internet roasted Sharon hotter than she roasted her pumpkin pie after she posted a photo of a blackened pie that resembled asphalt on the Marie Callender Facebook page on Thanksgiving.

            Sharon wrote, “Thanks Marie Calendar for ruining Thanksgiving dessert.”

            The company wrote, “We’re really sorry to hear our Pumpkin Pie let you down this year. We’d like to get in touch with you so we can hear more and help.”

            End of story?
            No way.

            One woman wrote, “Why are you sorry? You didn’t cremate her pie. You didn’t set her oven temperature to the ‘hell’ setting. She did that all on her own.”

            Readers posted questions like, “Did you try to bake the pie and self-clean the oven at the same time? You do know the fire alarm isn’t a timer, right?”

            One guy joked, “Thanks to Marie Callender, my wife left, took the kids, the house and even the dog.”

            Another posted a picture of the little girl from, “It’s a Wonderful Life” with the words, “Every time a bell rings, it’s Sharon ignoring her oven timer.”

            One person put a little flag note on Facebook that said, “Marked Safe from Sharon’s pie today.”

            On the Marie Callender’s Sharon Pie Roasting Posting page they’re calling Sharon the new Karen.

            I hope Sharon can laugh at it. She gave people a needed a respite from politics and the pandemic. It was also a good reminder to not blame and shame others for our own mishaps and mistakes.

            I’ve caught myself falling into that shame hole and trying to drag someone in with me. It doesn’t happen as often as it used to, but it still happens.

            Last week I was shopping at a local store where they now offer a self serve checkout option. I didn’t want to use it, but the workers were encouraging people to try it. So I set down my items. Apparently in the wrong spot.

            “Please place your item in bagging area,” the computer ordered.

            So I moved them to the right.

            “Please place your item in the bagging area,” it repeated.

            So I moved them to the left. It refused to scan my items. Arrggh!

            A cashier came over. “These didn’t scan. None of them did,” he said calmly and kindly.

            What I heard was, “How stupid are you, lady?!” Of course he didn’t say those words, but making a mistake sometimes pulls the trigger on my old childhood shame. The Buddhists call them sanskaras, those past unpleasant experiences that get trapped inside us.

            My frustration wasn’t over him. It was over not knowing how to do something. I felt like the child I once was whose dad used to yell, “What the hell is wrong with you? Can’t you do anything right?”

            Only my dad has been dead since 1999. So it’s really my voice saying it. I took over the job of shaming me, and sometimes shames comes out as anger.

            I got snarky at the cashier, who was actually helpful and rang up my items for me. “Next time I’ll just shop somewhere else,” I pouted.

            Oh, what am I doing? What am I saying? I’m shoving my shame on him. I’m blaming some innocent, underpaid, kind worker. I felt like Fred Flintstone in that cartoon where an angel on one shoulder encourages him to do good while the devil on the other shoulder cheers on his bad behavior.

            I’m sooo grateful no one videotaped my worst moment that day.

            I left the store, but even as I walked out the door, I knew I had to come right back. My friends in recovery taught me that any time I’m emotionally disturbed by anything, no matter what the cause, the problem is me.

            That means the solution is me.

            They also taught me that when you’re wrong, you promptly admit it.

            So I got to my car, put in my items, dug in my wallet and pulled out a $5 bill. I went back in and walked up to the cashier who saw me and looked like a deer caught in the headlights of a semi-truck.

            “I was rude to you and I’m sorry,” I said. “Here, thank you for helping me.”

            I handed him the tip, walked away and hope I didn’t ruin any part of his day.

            As Ram Dass said, “We’re all just walking each other home.”

            And some of us, me, Sharon, and maybe you, are stumbling along the way.