Random

I gave up my parking permit for the garage behind my building because 1) I couldn’t justify the expensive given all the flipping doctor bills I’ve got these days and 2) I was feeling pretty lazy since there is FREE street parking in the residential area a few streets away. I mean really, I’m in good shape, I should be able to walk right? I don’t want to end up one of those people who can’t walk 4 blocks without being winded.

Anyway, THAT was not the point of this story. The point was that on my way walking in to the office this morning I passed the cutest kitty sunning himself on the sidewalk. So what did I do, being the kitty lover that I am? I just HAD to pet that precious little cat. And he was SO CUTE y’all. He sat up and started purring and rubbing his little cheeks on my hand. SO. CUTE.

But then? When I started to leave? He followed me! So I had to turn around and go back to, what I presumed was, his house and explain to him that he had to stay there. And as I walked away, here comes the cat. Seriously, we did this little number about 3 or 4 more times before the cat finally got bored of me and wandered away in search of some grass to munch.

THIS is why I have an indoor cat y’all. Because my cat? He’s maybe not the smartest fur ball to ever have his ears scratched if you know what I mean. He’d take off after the first friendly stranger that looked like they had food in their pockets. I’m just saying.

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I have renewed my faith in humanity.

I generally get my prescriptions filled at the gigantic chain pharmacy across the street from my office. I went to the mom and pop owned local pharmacy for years but they were so far out of the way and this one was more convenient and yes I feel guilty about it why do you ask? Anyway, moving on. The pharmacy is convenient I will give them that, but their customer service skills leave a lot to be desired. More than once I’ve arrived several hours after the promised delivery date of my prescriptions only to be told that they’re still not ready and wouldn’t I mind coming back.

The other day I went in to get my migraine meds refilled, and true to form I had left it to the last possible day so I was preparing myself for a long wait. When I got there the only customer service person (poor frazzled girl) was helping a guy in a wheel chair pick out gloves. I’m a patient person, I don’t mind, in fact I was impressed that she was taking the time to help the guy. I mean clearly he couldn’t reach the gloves, which were on the top shelf, on his own. No one in the line seemed to be grumbling. It was a nice thing to do.

But then all of a sudden you could almost sense the change in her. She was anxious to be away and back behind the counter. I’m not sure if she was overly conscious of the other customers or what. I tried to smile encouragingly at her the one time she looked over and caught my eye but it didn’t seem to help. All of a sudden she simply piled various boxes of gloves in the guy’s wheelchair and instructed him to get back in line when he had made his choice.

Now y’all. The guy could not operate the wheelchair due to the placement of the boxes in his lap. You could see the embarrassment on his face. I was 4 seconds away from going over there and trying to help him, even though I don’t know the first thing about the benefits of latex gloves over whatever the other kind were, when all of a sudden I heard the woman behind me say “Good Lord.” I looked back and she sort of half smiled at me and pushed her way out of line and went over to the guy to help him.

Turns out she’s a caregiver for the elderly (the gloves the man was trying to purchase were for his own in-house caregivers) and she carefully collected the piles of boxes out of his wheelchair and gave him some pointers on which gloves SHE prefers and helped him make his decision based on size and price. Once they were both back in line I turned and whispered a thank you to her, indicating my own wish to help and ignorance in the subject of gloves. The three of us joked about the customer service and discussed the weather, the Giants and their children (hers) and grandchildren (his).

Sometimes the kindness of a stranger will affect more than just the recipient of the good deed. I believe everyone in that line left the store with a smile on their face that afternoon.

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I didn’t end up going to the gym OR doing any ironing OR uploading any Hawaii photos last night. The last one was probably pretty obvious. In fact I didn’t do anything productive at all!

What I DID do was sit my lazy butt on the couch and watch 4 episodes of So You Think You Can Dance back to back thanks to TiVo.

Oh yes I did.