There ARE Nice People in the World!

Just when you’ve had enough of people cutting you off on the freeway, abandoning their shopping carts haphazardly in the grocery store parking lot, or talking on their cell phone and ignoring a store clerk, all of a sudden somebody does something really nice for no reason whatsoever. It renews your faith in humanity.

Today, my daughter and I went shopping at the Fashion Show Mall. We were on a mission to find a Father’s Day gift for my husband.

We found some good stuff for Father’s Day at our first store (sorry, Mr. M, no hints here). And since shopping with my daughter is rarely complete without shopping for my daughter, we shopped for her as well, finding two cute summer outfits and some earrings. Thus, having our serious shopping out of the way, we were doing some browsing just for fun at a home store called Z Gallerie.

I had just picked out a cool tealight holder when my daughter and I came upon some fun rhinestone-covered trinkets: a computer mouse, a lipstick case, and a cell phone-sized calculator, among other things. The items were so cute that we spent several minutes picking things up and showing them to each other. I especially liked the monogram keychains. I found the “E” keychain for my daughter and held it up for her to see; she let out a squeal of delight that only a 9-year-old can do. Our enthusiasm was infectious: another shopper joined in and began examining the sparkly items too, holding up a tiny crystal-covered stapler for us to see.

Eventually we left the little assortment of bling to finish our tour of the store. My daughter plopped down on an oversized round swivel chair called the “Cuddler Chair” while I went to pay for my tealight. Another shopper, the woman who had shown us the sparkly stapler, was in front of me at the cash register. As she was leaving, she asked me what my daughter’s name was, smiled at my reply, and left. I turned my attention to the store clerk to pay for my purchase. After a minute or so, the clerk called over to my daughter, still lounging in the Cuddler, and asked “Are you going to open that now?” I turned around, perplexed, to look at my daughter. Open what?

My daughter was holding a little package wrapped in Z Gallerie tissue paper. It seems that the woman in front of me, our fellow bling-admirer, had walked by my daughter on her way out, handed her the package, and said “This is for you.”

At the clerk’s urging, my daughter unfolded the tissue paper and out slid a sparkly “E” keychain. I was astounded! Apparently the other shopper had noticed us admiring the keychain and decided to do something nice for a complete stranger. The clerk told us that the woman had asked her to “just add it in” with her purchases, saying that she likes to do things like that every now and then. It gave me chill bumps then, and I got them again now, just writing about it. What a nice thing to do!

The clerk and I were just as excited as my daughter. Each of us was touched by another person’s act of kindness and we all enjoyed the moment. Although the nice woman left the store without waiting for a thank you or any sign of appreciation, I’m hoping she left with the satisfaction of having done something nice for someone else. And for her, I have to say, you made our day!