nobody asked…

Don’t mess with me before noon. I am very much a creature of routines and habits, especially early in the day. A couple of days ago as I blindly followed my mechanical morning routine, I was suddenly jolted into conscious awareness by an anonymous random act of kindness that will endure as my Kevin Spacey moment.

Stopping for a coffee, as I do routinely at the Mapco gas stop/convenience store adjacent to my office on Trousdale, I poured the Columbian, added just a tad of sweetner, stirred, tasted, and headed toward the front checkout register. Halfway there, the clerk motioned for the young woman already standing there to go to the other register. I stopped and moved aside for her to pass on her way to the back checkout counter. She motioned for me to go ahead, but I said, No, you were here first. She smiled and walked on back to checkout. I lingered along the way, drooling over a promotional display of the latest dark chocolate sins from Hershey.

After the young woman was finished and headed out the door, I moved to the counter with money in hand. The clerk said, She paid for your coffee. Gazing at her with my best deer in the headlights look, sure that my hearing aid batteries had suddenly failed, I uttered something highly intelligent like, Huh?

That young lady ahead of you paid for your coffee. You’re good to go.

I looked at the clerk, looked out the door hoping to glimpse that wonderfully generous soul, then back at the clerk. The moment blurs, but I remember saying something akin to, I wish I knew who she was. Hurrying out the door, looking left and right, she was nowhere in sight. I found a comfortable spot to stand and soak up some rays from the morning sun while enjoying my coffee and wondering at the marvelous event that had just occurred.

A young woman, a very attractive young woman, who I had never seen before and will likely never run into again, had for no discernable reason, bought this old fool a cup of coffee. Was it because I demonstrated the common courtesy of letting her go ahead of me at the checkout? Is that such a rare thing these days that it gets rewarded? Certainly I neither deserved nor expected a payback. Maybe she was paying it forward, like in Spacey’s film.

To that kind young woman: Thank you so much. Your anonymous generosity is rare. At every opportunity, I will be passing it on by paying it forward. I hope that when you least expect it and most need it, someone comes along to shower you with a similar act of kindness. If you see me again, tap me on the shoulder and say Howdy. Let me buy you a cup of coffee or three.