A random act of kindness

It was odd. Within two hours of finishing yesterday’s blog about wanting to avoid people, I had an encounter that showed people are kind of awesome. 

I’m up in Indianapolis for the month of May leading up to the Indianapolis 500 and have been staying at a hotel. I needed some supplies and food so I drove to a grocery store. While there, I still had it in my mind to avoid people and did my best to achieve it. 

I found what I needed and proceeded to the checkout. Sadly, the self-checkouts were closed so I had to go to the ones with the cashiers. Strangely, and prophetically, I thought back to when I started my blog originally in 2010 and all the supermarket blog posts I had. Truly, if I wanted something to write about all I had to do was go to a grocery store. This was going to be no exception. 

There was a lady in front of me so I put my four items on the conveyor belt and waited. The lady hadn’t put her credit card in the reader, but the cashier started scanning my items. I panicked, worried about a social situation and I felt bad for the cashier as she was going to have to deal with a potentially angry customer because my items were now on her tab, but my items were bagged and then the lady paid. 

What was going on? I had the most dumbfounded look on my face wondering what to do  the cashier then turned to me and said, “she paid for it. You’re okay.” Paid for it? Why? Who does that? I didn’t know what to do or say so I did nothing. I couldn’t move or speak because I didn’t know what to do.

I stayed that way for 30 seconds because I didn’t know how to say thank you. The lady never looked my way so I didn’t get a chance to speak, but I also felt like it was some sort of crime going through the checkout aisle and not paying for anything.

The lady quickly disappeared while I was still frozen and looking at the cashier wondering what to do. She reiterated, “it’s fine, you’re items are paid for.” Eventually I did take the bag and felt kind of bad. While I was filled with gratitude, I couldn’t react and thank her. That’s what this post is, though. Nice deeds are awesome, even though a person may not be able to react, and from wanting to be isolated earlier in the day she showed me that people can be totally awesome.