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Department Store, New York, Non-Dialogue, Strangers, USA | Friendly | May 14, 2020

I’m a huge LEGO fan and have collected LEGO since 1986. I was browsing the LEGO aisle at a store where the employees wear red shirts and khakis in early December a few years ago. I was wearing a dark navy blue polo and khakis at the time.

A couple of elderly ladies were there and, out of the blue, one of them said, “Excuse me, which set would be appropriate for a nine-year-old boy?”

I looked over, surprised that she was speaking to me.

I asked a bit about the boy’s thematic interests and price points and showed her a few sets that I thought might fit the bill. I was just trying to be generally helpful.

After I finished — maybe fifteen or twenty minutes later — she thanked me for my assistance and tried to tip me. I said, “Oh, I’m sorry, I can’t take that. I don’t work here. I’m just a LEGO fan.”

The elderly lady immediately looked me up and down then got this look of horror that I could only equate to Donald Sutherland’s expression in Invasion of the Body Snatchers before hurrying out of the aisle.

So much for being helpful, I guess.

This story is part of our Lego roundup!