Juice

I bought someone's juice today. O.K., it was actually last month, but I still think about it a lot. We were visiting Lake Arrowhead in CA and I had run into the grocery store for some ice cream for dessert. Joe & kids stayed in the car because I would "just be a minute". I actually was able to decide on a flavor super quick and was at the cashier in record time. Quickly I scanned the shortest lane and thought I made a great choice.

There was only one woman in front of me, friendly looking, all her groceries already up and being scanned. I put my ice cream up and started scanning the magazine headlines. I didn't even realize that it had been unusually long (yes, I was enjoying the guilty pleasure of gossip reading without having to worry about three kids emptying all the impulse candy items at kid level) until I heard the woman apologize to me. I started paying attention and realized she was paying with some WIC coupons and food stamps and the cashier was being very very picky about what order things were scanned in and that it was the exact right product. He looked at me with an impatient and exasperated look in his eyes, clearly not happy at the extra work this woman was giving him. I just stood there watching their unhappiness with the situation and each other, still holding the magazine.

They finally got down to her last four items, 3 different gallons of juice, but apparently she had selected the wrong brand and the cashier told her she needed to go back and exchange them. She looked back at me apologetically and I asked, "can I buy your juice?". She was confused for a minute and then started nodding her head and thanking me. The cashier took a little longer to catch on. I had to tell him about 4 different times that she didn't need to go switch her juice anymore because I was just going to buy it. She finally was able to leave with her groceries and the cashier was silent. He didn't say a word or even make eye contact with me until he started to hand me my change. He paused before he gave it to me and said, "that was a really nice thing you did for that lady. I've not seen someone do that before". If he only knew. Part II coming soon.