Sunday morning I dragged Tim with me to Michael’s, hoping to take advantage of their humongous ribbon sale and to use the 60% coupon I had. I wanted to go early, hoping to beat the church crowd but, unfortunately, I wasn’t the only one who had that “bright” idea. Holy crap, that place was a freakin’ madhouse but well worth the insanity, since I was able to pick up about a mile or two of good project ribbon for $5 bucks and saved myself about $15.
Although we’d really only been in the store for about 5 or 6 minutes, I could tell that Tim was about to start convulsing and clawing his eyes out, so I herded him towards the register. Yes, you read that right- “the,” as in singular, “register” was open with about 20 people waiting in a long line that threaded through the display stands.
The overhead speakers crackled with a frantic plea from the poor girl running the register for “backup assistance at the front, backup assistance to the front!” EVENTUALLY, two fat-cat manager types, who had prolly been drinking coffee and shootin’ the breeze in the back room, slowly wandered up to open two more registers. It was a mass exodus as all the people in front of us jumped ship to the other lanes pushing and shoving one another to make it into one of the new lines.
The woman in front of us hesitated before making a break for it and since Tim and I were very last in the line of 20, we moved all the way up to position #3 at the original register! As we stepped forward to claim our new spot, I saw the woman who had hesitated, turn her cart around and rejoin our lane, muttering to herself in disappointment as she pulled up behind us.
Three price checks and a manager void later, it was FINALLY our turn, but I grabbed Tim’s arm and motioned the woman to move ahead of us, “Go on ahead, you were originally here before us.” She was so surprised and said, “Are you sure?” I smiled, “Absolutely.”
Tim and I made fun of the Martha Stewart & Rosie O’Donnell craft books as we waited.
It was finally our turn and as we stepped up to the counter, the woman in front of us, turned around, handed each of us a dark chocolate square she’d just bought from the register counter “impulse basket” and said, “These are for you for being so nice, thanks again!” We’d barely managed a startled and very surprised, “Wow, Thanks!!” before she zipped out the door, heading towards her next destination.
Man, what a sweet thing for her to do! Neither of us expected anything like that- I had just felt bad for her, knowing what it’s like to gamble on a lane jump and lose big.
“So, WOW! Thanks again, nice lady with the yellow cart and armload of crafty stuff!” :)
