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Crossing Paths
Quick stories where sometimes
it's a good thing, and sometimes not so much...
I
almost hoped she was on drugs...
I was at the grocery store today and
the girls scouts were out with their cookies and made their
pitch to me. So being the type that wants to support their
efforts (and plus, I'm addicted to the caramel/coconut/chocolate
combo ones), I went up to the table that was staffed by two
mid-teen girls, one standing there while the other was a few
feet away on the phone.
I said I wanted two boxes and the
girl scout told me they were $4 each. I handed her a twenty. She
looked at it and paused and said, "Hold on, I have to think for
a moment (to calculate your change.)"
She was Caucasian and spoke like
she had been a local born and raised American.
At first I thought perhaps I had
mumbled or been otherwise inarticulate, but she pulled aside two
boxes.
I gave her my most forced smile
ever.
However, then she called
her cohort over.
If it had been to help her do the
math of subtracting $8 from $20, I would've let slip a very
unneighborly comment... that she probably wouldn't have caught
anyway.
But, um, luckily, it
turned out that she only needed her cohort because the other
girl had the wad of change.
Yet, she still struggled a bit to
figure out many ones to give me after she gave me a $5 bill...
When she finally gave me the rest of the change, she gave me a
sheepish smile and said "I think that's seven dollars."
And as an act of "reassurance", I admit I was a little bit of
a bitch by recounting the ones in front of her to make certain
that she did it right. (She wasn't interested in
interacting with me at that point anyway.)
But at least I did it with a smile.
~ Feb. 28 ,10 ~
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No, it wasn't because it was African-American History Month
If I'm in public and I approach a
door ahead of someone else who is up to twenty feet behind me, I
will hold the door open for that person(s), regardless of race,
gender, age, etc. I consider that a simple matter of
having good manners.
I was at the post office on
Friday, which was a little busy. I walked up to the
entrance from one direction a little bit ahead of an
African-American man approaching it from the other direction.
I even sped up my strides a bit so that I got to the door before
him, and then held it open for him.
A large athletic man, he paused
in surprised but then smiled and nodded as he walked in. I
briefly thought at that moment that he almost had an exagerrated
swagger.
But just as I thought that, he
announced in a loud voice in the post office lobby, "Dang,
this is the first time I've ever had door opened for me by a
woman!"
I laughed and declared as loud,
"There's a first time for everything!"
He laughed and said, "That's
right! This is America!"
~ Feb. 28 ,10 ~
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