Kindness In A Can!

I’m in line at an independent grocery store in my small town when I first moved here. The lady in front of me is very elderly, buying just two small cans of cat food and a tin of baked beans. She seems a little perplexed by her surroundings but is polite enough to the girl behind the counter.

I watch her step up to the counter, the lady scans her items, and then the customer walks away! I am a bit shocked at the brazen theft, but the cashier just prints out a little receipt, puts it to one side, and waves me over.

Me: “Did… did that old lady just steal that stuff?”

Cashier: “Nope, watch this.”

A woman in her forties dashes in, puts the tins back on the counter, winks at the cashier, and darts out again. The cashier puts the items back in the go-back trolley and scribbles something on the receipt.

Cashier: “She has Alzheimer’s and forgets completely after about two minutes. She lives up the street with her daughter, and it’s good exercise for her to walk down here every day, so her daughter follows behind her, we let her shop for whatever she fancies that day, and then [Daughter] ‘just so happens’ to run into her outside the doors and offers to take her to the cafe for lunch. She’s always so excited to go to the cafe that she just never notices [Daughter] bringing the things back inside.”

Me: “I… Wow. That’s a lovely thing you guys do for them.”

Cashier: “Eh, it costs us zero dollars to let her feel a bit happy and do something normal for five minutes a day. I’ll be sad when she’s not in here every day anymore. One night, she came in here right on close in her nightie. We had to distract her for a bit so one of us could run and get [Daughter]. She was sorting shelves for us while she waited!”

A bit of faith in humanity was restored. I do see the old dear and her daughter walking back from the cafe most afternoons when I’m on my lunch break, and it always makes me smile that the girls at the grocery shop are looking out for her.