The Kindness of (Shopping) Strangers

Two comments before today's post:
First, I hope you haven't missed my tribute to my grandfather yesterday. When not many people comment, I get the impression that nobody read...
Second, I really want to blog more often, but sometimes I feel that nobody's reading and that if I post more often, people will read even less [or even less people will read, whatever]-- but I think the opposite is true, no? I know that I should blog for me and not for any prospective readership, but for some reason I have a hard time internalizing that. Consequently, I have missed blogging about several things (like recording here things the boys say, little events from daily life that make me smile, etc.). I'll try to change my perspective on that, and this post is a beginning.

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Today I finally stopped putting off the trip to our wholesale club of choice, the one with the cheapest and best store brand diapers (yeah... I'm sick and tired of diapers and I'm aware that cloth is better, but... those are subjects for other posts), softest [store brand] wipes, cheap huge tubs of organic spring salad mix (organic produce is becoming very easy to find and relatively cheap too!), and other necessary things. I was getting ready to check out and actually reading a tabloid [how embarrassing! ;)] while I waited for my turn when I saw that the lady in front of me left a store coupon by the self-check out lane. I asked whether it was hers and if she needed it and she said she hadn't used it. It was a 5 dollars coupon for replacement water filters which we sorely needed but didn't want to buy without a coupon (as it turns out, we forgot to change our address at the club so our coupons are still mailed to our old house). She told me that I could have it and that today was actually the last day it could be used!

I happily headed back to get the filters and then remembered that I'd better buy dishwasher detergent. I have tried two brands of green detergents, but they're not cutting it because our dishwasher is old and not very good and our water is really hard, so the dishes only get satisfactorily cleaned with the powerful, toxic stuff :(. I was pondering my choices when two ladies waked into that aisle. One of them said to the other: "This brand is better and I have a coupon for it!" I was looking at this other brand [warning, loud commercial on this website], but influenced by her, I picked up the other detergent to read the label. She looked at me and asked: "Do you have a coupon?" When I answered "No" she promptly responded that she had an extra one and went to her cart to get it. I was beside myself and, while thanking her, I shared that this was the second coupon I was scoring that day! I thanked her again and said, "I guess this is my lucky day!" Well, at least for shopping it was. I left the store smiling at the kindness of strangers who helped me save US$ 7.25! :)