Random Kindness

Yesterday I bought milk, eggs, bread, yogurt, and bananas, those were the only groceries that I needed this week, but the clerk refused my credit card. I kept trying to insert my card into the card reader and he kept blocking my hand with a smile. Huh? His smile broadened and he pointed to the woman who had been in the checkout line before me, a woman of about my age, weight, shape, and socio-economic circumstance, a pleasant woman. She was startled to be pointed out for her random act of kindness. I was touched and embarrassed. So I flung up my arms to the heavens in a surge of appreciation and softly exclaimed, "Happy Spring!" Then I shyly fled.

Thinking it over later I realized why the stranger had done such a kind and random thing as to pay for my groceries. I remembered that at the checkout counter, when the young clerk asked if I wanted to keep the bright yellow cardboard box that I had also placed on the conveyor belt, I had said, "Oh yes. That box will do quite a few things. I'll take my groceries home in it, then the cat will play in it for a few days, then I will put some things into it to go to charity." He smiled kindly, "I'll put your groceries in the box for you."*

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*Searching the internet I found, "Anything you think there should be more of, do it randomly. Don’t await a reason." By Anne Herbert, Random Kindness and Senseless Acts of Beauty, 1993. Ms. Herbert also recommended immediately rewarding good, kind behavior when you saw it.