A nice story

This week something sweet happened to me that I wanted to remember.

I shop at a store called Aldi. It's a grocery that offers discount prices with two catches: you have to bag your own groceries and you can only pay with cash or DEBIT card (not credit card). This is literally the only place where I use my debit card. We usually pay with our credit card for everything to rack up our "thank you" points.

Anyway, this week I was shopping at Aldi with Baby Jo strapped to me. He hates being in his carseat when we shop, and he isn't crazy about sitting in the cart's seat. So instead, he happily dangles in his Baby Bjorn carrier while I pick up all our food. This, of course, attracts lots of attention. People often make comments like, "Gee, does your back hurt?" or make googoo eyes at Jo. Sure enough, while I was in the check out isle, a nice lady behind me was smiling and cooing at Baby Jo. She then moved to the next check out isle due to a cashier opening another lane.

After I placed all my groceries on the conveyer and the cashier scanned everything, she gave me my total. "$44.15, please." I opened my wallet and....my debit card was not in there. I had no idea where it was, and since I never use it I didn't notice it was missing until right then. I frantically shuffled through my entire wallet and didn't see it anywhere. I checked to see if I had any cash on me. I had 30 bucks. Yikes.

"Um...So here's the thing," I explained, "I don't have my debit card. I DO have cash, but not enough. So I'm gonna have to take some things out of my cart." I felt like such a moron. It didn't help that there were about four people in line behind me, witnessing this whole thing. As I was bouncing Jo on my chest, I started listing things in my cart that I knew I didn't need to have that day. "Uh...I guess lose the cheese...and you can take out the yogurt.." I was a little flustered when all of a sudden, I heard someone say, "Ma'am! I can help you! I'll help!"

I turned around and realized that the voice was the nice lady that was previously behind me in my line. She was holding her debit card. I was caught off guard. She said, "I have four kids and I know how hard it is to shop with babies. It's easy to forget things." My initial reaction was to stop her. Surely it was unnecessary.  After all, I wasn't a poor woman who couldn't afford to feed her children. I was just a dork  with bad timing who lost her debit card. But I stopped myself from refusing her help. For one thing, she obviously WANTED to help. She wasn't even in my line anymore. She had no pressure to save me. She sought me out. Also, I thought to myself, "I am in a bind. And if someone wants to help me, why can't I let them?"  So I let her help.

Obviously, I was flushed and thanked her multiple times. "Thank you. This is so kind. I usually have my card with me. This is so nice of you. Thank you." I sounded like a broken record. The cashier, now smiling, said, "It's $44.15." The lady handed the cashier her card. I stopped her and said I had $30 in cash to cover most of the groceries, but I was so touched that she was willing to pay such a large amount. She covered the $14.15 left over and reminded me again that she understood how shopping with kids is tough. The man behind me in line was noticeably touched by the whole thing. "This is certainly what the Christmas Spirit is all about, " he said (at he said something very similar to that). I was a little teary eyed through the whole thing and thanked the woman again. After she left, the man behind came up to me wished me a Merry Christmas.

I am so thankful to the sweet lady who offered to help someone who was NOT in desperate need (after all, I could have just went home and got the food another day). Sometimes we think the people we need to help are the poor and needy- and we DO need to help them! But, we can look out and help the less needy too. Everyone can use kindness. And the event reminded me of the importance of accepting help from others. Help is a good thing to accept, especially when it is offered. I have a feeling that this sweet woman who helped me out felt good for the rest of the day and looks back on our moment together with happiness. I know I do.


And, of course, when I got to my car my debit card was just sitting there. Oops.