Kindness Chronicles I

This is the first post in the Kindness Chronicles, weekly updates of my adventures in kindness.

This first week has been one of learning.
I have learned that, although I often do kind things, I do not often do kind things intentionally.

I was unintentionally kind at the grocery store on Thursday. In the juice aisle, I encountered a vertically challenged woman who was standing on her tippiest of tippy toes, struggling to reach the last bottle of Pomegranate Pucker juice that was hiding at the very back of the top shelf. I offered to grab it for her and I think I could an actually hear a sigh of relief from her toes as she allowed the muscles in her body to relax. She asked me if I could just make sure that there were no more hiding just beyond her reach and her line of vision. I checked behind the Very Berry, the Pineapple Passion and the Mango Madness, and found that there was no Pomegranate Pucker escaping purchase. We exchanged smiles and continued on our separate ways. I was better for our encounter.

I was intentionally kind at Costco. My intention that day was to let others know when I thought something nice about them. Sometimes, it’s nice to know that others notice you in a positive way.

So, I was in the check out line and an older woman and her husband were in front of me. The woman had perfectly coiffed silver hair, fashion forward spectacles, complete with rhinestones at the temples, and the clearest, brightest, sparkly-est, robin’s egg blue eyes I have ever seen. She was dressed for Costco, pink crocs with fuzzy lambs wool liners, faded old lady jeans, a cream colored long sleeved t-shirt and a cozy blue-grey fleece. Her hands shook a little as she wrote out the check for her groceries. I watched her and was overwhelmed by her beauty. So overwhelmed, in fact, that she left before I could say anything to her.
Dah-yum!

When I picked up my daughter from school, I told her this part of the story, and she said, “It’s a good thing you didn’t say anything, she would have thought that your were a stalker and you would have scared her.”
“Ah, but wait,” I laughed to her, holding up my index finger and wagging it at her, “the story is not over.”

You see, the couple had purchased over $240 of groceries. Their shopping cart was full to overflowing. I, on the other hand, had but a handful of items. I resolved that if I saw them in the parking lot when I was leaving, I would say something.
I walked out to my car. No couple.
I loaded my groceries into my car, returned the cart to the cart corral, and started to leave. Instead of driving out the first exit, though, I drove through the parking lot to the exit at the far end. I peered down each lane as I passed, and, as I drove passed the third lane, I spied them. They were still loading their car, a late model silver Toyota sedan.
Quickly, I looped around. As I neared them, I rolled down the window.

At this point in my story, my daughter is cringing in the passenger seat. She is holding her head in her hands screaming, “No. No! You didn’t. Tell me you didn’t!”

My lips tighten together as I nod sadly at her, “I did.”

I rolled down my window and said, “Excuse me.”
I think I may have given the woman a bit of a start. She was squatted on the pavement trying to drag one of those mega packages of toilet paper off the bottom rack of the cart where it was wedged. My voice broke her concentration and she glanced up at me, her face a mixture of surprise and annoyance.
“I was in line behind you at the check out,” I explained, “and I just wanted to let you know that I think you are the most beautiful woman.
She kind of glanced behind her to make sure that I was talking to her, then, she looked back at me and smiled. Before she could say anything, her husband danced from the other side of the car. He did some sort of a little two-step jig, stuck his thumbs through his imaginary suspenders and laughed, “What about me?”
I waved at him and laughed back and said, “Nope, I can’t do that. That’s your beautiful bride’s job.”
As I drove away, I glanced at them in the rearview mirror. They were standing by the open trunk of their car smiling broadly at each other and for an instant, I could see the young couple who fell in love and promised to spend the rest of their lives together.

“Aw,” my daughter sighs, hands clasped under her chin. “That’s so sweet!”

“Yes it was,” I agree. “So am I forgiven?”
She takes on the air of a queen granting a pardon, looks down her nose at me and nods, “Yes, you’re forgiven.”

Next week, she’s going to join me in the kindness challenge as long as I promise that it is not just a scam on my part to con her in to being nicer to her younger brother.
I promised.