In December of 2001, my boyfriend and I decide to go to the mall for some Christmas shopping. It is before the era of everything being available online, so the parking lot is packed. We park at the far end of a lot near one of the main mall entrances, and we go in to do battle with the rest of the holiday shoppers.

About three hours later, we come out and head for my car. There’s a Jeep parked in front of it with the hazard lights on. I start to panic as we approach, thinking my poor car has been damaged. A young woman jumps out of the Jeep.

Young Woman: *Pointing to my car* “Is that your car?”

Me: “Yes. Is everything okay?”

Young Woman: *Smiling* “Oh, yeah, have I got a story to tell you.”

Apparently, she and her friends had also gone to the mall, and they came in two cars. After they had been there a while, one of the friends noticed she had to leave. Another girl gave her a set of keys and said, “Take my car. I’ll get it later.” The girl nodded, took the keys, and left.

She got to the car, unlocked the door, put on the seatbelt, adjusted the mirrors, put the key in the ignition, and drove off. About five minutes later, while on the nearby highway, she realized that something was off.

She had gotten in the wrong car.

She panicked and immediately drove back to the mall, and somehow, the parking spot was still available. She found her friends, obviously freaked out because she had just stolen a car and had no clue if the owner had come out, seen the car missing, and called the police to report a theft. They found the correct car, which happened to be the same year, make, model, AND color, parked about four spots away from mine. Her friends told her to go to work, and they’d take care of things.

Apparently, her friends waited another hour before we came out to make sure their poor friend didn’t get arrested. I did a little digging, and it turned out that, for whatever reason, every 200,000th car of that make and model had the same key.

I did check to make sure nothing was missing or damaged. There was a part of me that wondered if it was just some weird prank, but I’d never seen these people before, and I have no idea what anyone would gain from telling me a story like this. Honestly, if they hadn’t told me, I’d never have known my car went on a road trip without me.

I do miss that car.

My mom and I were at the mall. She was looking for silk boxers because she finds them comfortable to sleep in, and she had tried many stores in the mall with no luck. While walking back to the parking area, we passed a “romance shop” that had a worker standing outside the storefront, and as a last resort, she decided to ask if they carried them.

Mom: “Do you have any men’s lingerie?”

The worker was clearly uncomfortable as she eyed me, a young teen who was most definitely not allowed inside her workplace.

Worker: “…well, we have a men’s push-up thong?” 

Mom: *Laughing* “Not really what I’m looking for, but thanks, anyway.”

While I was at University, I had a summer job at a shoe store in a kind of run-down mall that wasn’t very busy. Sometimes we were feeling lazy and didn’t feel like serving customers, and we had a surefire way to get them to leave.

When a customer walked in, if we ignored them, they would often take a look around and 80% of the time ask to try some shoes on. If we wanted them to leave, we would greet them as soon as they walked in and ask if we could help them with anything, which almost always led to them leaving immediately. It was also interesting that if we simply said, “Hi, how are you today?” the answer invariably was, “I’m just looking,” followed by a quick exit.

Nowadays, when I go into a store and someone asks me how I am, I make a point of saying, “Good, thanks. How are you?”

I manage a natural food store in a mall. In addition to the vitamins and “healthy” snacks, we sell some bulk food, and we make freshly ground peanut butter.

Customer: “How much peanut butter would I get from a pound of peanuts?”

Me: “A pound, ma’am.”

Customer: “But you grind it, and that changes it, right?”

Me: “Yes, but a pound makes a pound.”

Customer: “But you put a few scoops in the top; how do you know how much to put in?”

Me: “I don’t; I just grind it until a pound comes out.”

Customer: “No, you’re not understanding. Is it like two pounds of peanuts, four pounds?”

Me: “To make a pound of peanut butter?”

Customer: “Yeah, to make one pound.”

Me: “One pound. We don’t add anything or take anything away. A pound goes in, a pound comes out.”

Customer: “That must be because it’s natural, right?”

Me: “You mean some brands who add sugar and other stuff?”

Customer: “Yeah.”

Me: “I can’t say, but for us, we put in a pound of peanuts, and a pound of peanuts comes out.”

Customer: “But that doesn’t make any sense! Can you put in two pounds of peanuts just to be sure?”

Me: “Sure, but I need to charge you for two pounds of peanut butter.”

Customer: “Why? I only want one pound.”

I end up just grinding a pound. I weigh it and charge her. 

Customer: “See? I told you a pound would come out!”

In our country, there a lot of people who don’t have bank accounts. Therefore, to get credit on their cell phones they need to buy prepaid cards and ‘load’ the credit on to them. Doing this can be an elaborate procedure, especially on older phones.

A lot of older customers have older phones, usually hand-me-downs from younger relatives who have found ways to upgrade.

I work in a phone kiosk in a mall, selling the prepaid phone cards along with other phone-related merchandise. A really old lady approaches me and starts speaking to me in very slow Tagalog.

Old Lady: “I… can… buy… load… for the phone?” 

Me: “Yes, I can sell that to you.”

This old lady then opens a plastic bag (she doesn’t have a purse) and starts putting out smaller bags, each containing coins. 

Old Lady: “I’ve… been… saving!”

I can tell from her accent that Tagalog is not her normal dialect. She actually sounds like she speaks my home dialect.

Me: “Excuse me, but do you speak Cebuano?”

The old lady’s eyes go wide and she suddenly explodes in a flurry of Cebuano.

Old Lady: “Yes, I do! Oh, The Lord has blessed me with you! I don’t like speaking Tagalog but I moved to the city, and I have to learn and usually my daughter helps me but she works two jobs now and I need to help her by helping myself and the least I can do is figure out my phone and…”

She continues on like this in a long, single, running sentence. Luckily, I have similar fast-speaking matriarchs in my family, so I am used to processing verbal information at this speed. At some point, I do need to steer the conversation back to why she is here, though.

Me: “—so, ma’am. You want to buy load for your phone? How much?”

Old Lady: “I’ve been saving! I think I have 500 pesos. Is that enough to call home?”

This is about $9 USD. It usually isn’t enough to do too much, but I get the feeling I am looking at the amount that this woman has been saving for a long, long time.

Me: “You need to call Cebu?” *Our home island.*

Old Lady: “Yes.”

Me: “I can set you up for a 500 peso deal where you can call Philippine numbers unlimited for a month.”

Old Lady: “A whole month! Bless you! I thought I would be getting maybe a phone call or two? One time I bought a 250-peso card and I only got one phone call.”

I didn’t say it, but sadly whoever this old lady spoke to before must have conned her. As for me, I also am telling a little lie; she would not be able to get a whole month of unlimited calls for 500 pesos. It actually costs double that, but I am not about to leave this poor old lady without a means to call home when she’s alone and scared in the big city.

Me: “I have a special card you can use, ma’am.”

She buys the card and then holds it in her hand, almost protectively. This $9 single piece of card in a plastic wrap is likely the single most expensive purchase she’s made in a while.

Old Lady: *Nervous and slow.* “I… don’t see too well. I can’t see all the numbers.”

Me: “Shall I add the load to your phone?”

Old Lady: *Quick and excited again.* “Yes! Bless you! The Lord sent me to you today!”

I go through the over-complicated process of adding the money on to her phone, and then selecting the package she will need to get unlimited calls.

Me: “You should be able to call home now.”

This old lady then reaches into the same plastic bag and shows me a phone number.

Old Lady: “I can’t see all the numbers. Can you call this number for me?”

My heart breaking, I decide I am going to make sure this old lady never has problems talking to her relatives back home ever again.

I save the number into her very old phone, and then I figure out how to speed dial the number using the minimal amount of button presses. I manage to set it up so that she simply has to press three buttons a second apart to be able to auto-dial the number she gave me.

I explain this process to her:

Old Lady: “Young people! Really you’re so smart! You speak Tagalog, and English! And you know the phones! When I was young we just knew about fetching the water and cooking rice. So smart! Young people are so smart!”

She tries it out, and it works!

For the next hour she sits down next to my kiosk and talks to her sister and tells her about all of her adventures since she moved from her rural province into the big city. She is overjoyed and talking furiously. She keeps coming up to me to ask if she will run out of time soon, and I happily remind her that she can keep talking for thirty more days and she still wouldn’t run out.

After her call she thanks me and eventually leaves, with me smiling from ear to ear.

Since that day she comes back every month, with a bag of coins and asking for me to upload it to her phone. I don’t even count the bag of coins anymore; I know she’s good for it.

It can be scary for an older person from the country to move to the big city. If I could help her maintain a connection back to the home village, then that was what I was going to do. 

I look forward to her visits every month.

This story is part of the Best-Feel-Good-Stories Of-2023 roundup!

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