Wednesday, October 5, 2011

The Kindness of Strangers (a bit of a dramatic title)

 

Let me start by saying that it is only Wednesday and it has already been a long week. Today it rained all day; which was great at first but got old really fast. Then tonight I had this one hour training thing for the BYU PowWow I volunteered for. After that I had to track down some quarters so I could do my laundry (that chore was so much easier when Grandma lived right down the street) because I am quickly running out of clothes. Well, I don’t usually carry cash so I had to get some bills out and the easiest way for me to do this is to go the store, buy something, put it on my debit card, and then ask for cash back. So off to Smith’s I went.

Now to decide what inexpensive thing to purchase. I went down the ice cream aisle thinking maybe some Ben & Jerry’s, but I just wasn’t feeling it (I know, I know, me not wanting ice cream, how strange-my parents’ mouths are hanging open right now). Then as I got to the end of the aisle I saw cool whip…decision made. Frozen yogurt pie it is! Turns out the pie crust and cool whip were on sale-so naturally I decided to get the stuff for 2 pies. Since this is much more than I originally anticipated buying I did not have an adequate carrying container (also known as a basket) and very carefully had to pile these items on one arm. Then when I got to the yogurt I began gently placing the small containers. As I reached for my third one, one of the previously stacked yogurts crashed to the ground and popped open. And what do you do in that situation? Put it back (like the attractive man with the really nice arms wearing basketball shorts and a tank top told me do)? No, that’s dishonest. The hole in the cover isn’t that big, I’ll just buy it and use it right away. So I successfully make it all the way from the back of the store to the register without dropping any more of my precious supplies.

Because I’m really worried about this whole busted yogurt situation, I make sure to point it out to the cashier and beg him to be really careful. He oh so nicely smiles at me and says “Oh, you don’t have to buy this one, accidents happen. I’ll have some one get you a new one.” He then proceeds to call some poor like high school student bag boy over and sends him all the way back to the yogurt section to retrieve my one little yogurt container. While he’s scanning my stuff I ask if I can get quarters from customer service and he assures me I can. When I ask for my money back Charles (that’s the cashiers name) says “I’ll give you two tens so the whole process is easier for you.” After the little bag boy come running with my yogurt I jump in the 10 person long customer service line…and obviously I would much rather wait in line for the next half hour than go home.

So, I’m standing there tapping my foot and Charles beckons me over to his register as his finishes checking the next customer out. He motions to the $10 bill in my hand and says, “Here, I’ll just sneak back and grab a roll for you.” And he did. Instead of 30 minutes it took about 30 seconds. Charles basically made my whole day; I just really appreciate someone doing something that was beyond what they were supposed to do just to be nice. And to answer the question my roommate asked after I relayed this story to her: No, he didn’t ask me out. In fact, he was about 40 years old and wearing a wedding band.

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