Even In Bad Times, People are Good — Conflict and Scotch

Haven’t had a WEGMANS story in a while and, trust me, this is a good one.

Had a pretty long shopping list, most times I just run in for an item or two ( and scotch), not a full cart. Today, cart was a little more than half full. Stroll down the aisle, I look for a cashier with a short line. Find a young man in line, long hair, baseball cap, casually dressed with his back to me. There were only a few items left for him, so I fall in behind. Start to unload my cart, the young girl cashier finishes the man’s total; he pays and leaves. What I did not notice is what happened between his payment and exit.

The cashier, a girl probably in high school, but not much older, says hello to me. As I take the last item out of my cart, I say good afternoon. When I move up even with her, she iholds two twenties in her hand. I assume its the last man’s payment.

“That man that just left,” she sounds a bit astonished, “gave me forty-dollars to put towards your bill.”

“What??”

I look for the long hair and hat, but they were gone.

The girl sounded happy, “This has never happened to me before.”

She finished ringing up my items, and I hand her two more twenties to add to the money she already had. We keep talking, and she sounds very excited about all this.

Why did he do it? Was it seeing me in my ‘Girls Rock North Carolina’ t-shirt that my daughter designed? Or the ten-year-old TCNJ gray sweatpants that I bought my son’s freshman year in college? Or for reasons of his own?

The man’s offer was very generous, and I’m glad there are people out there like him, dropping random deeds of kindness, like breadcrumbs, along the way.

Right now, I’m in a good place financial, and I’m sure his intent to to help someone who needed it, so I decide to do something.

With all items in my cart, and my changed returned to me, I say, “Why not keep this going” and hand the cashier two more twenties.

Again, she looked elated. But I added a caveat — “I’m leaving it to your discretion as to who gets it.”

“Okay.”

On my drive home, I hoped she picked someone who needed it, but kick myself for not saying, “Someone with kids”.

The couple that was behind me at the time, in their twenties, buying wine and organic meats, probably didn’t the money.

But, then again, looks can be deceiving…

Originally published at https://www.conflictandscotch.com on August 11, 2021.