Unpacking This Flat-Pack Story Results In Something Beautiful

I took my elementary-aged son and his two hungry friends to a cafeteria within a store for lunch after church, because it’s really affordable and we are not all that comfortable financially.

How awful to load up our trays, get up to the register, and then find out my wallet was missing! Yet the cashier empathized with the situation and helped me think through some ideas for alternate payment.

I stood to the side to download a mobile payment app to my phone and get it set up, but it’s an old phone and there were tech problems. The cashier then offered to pay for the meal and have me reimburse her via a different payment app. So, I stood to the side again to download it, but because of my old phone and spotty data connection, this was taking a very long time.

I came so very close to panicking. Everything was loud, it got so hot in there, I was dizzy… The boys were jumping around and freaking me out, so I sent them on various “errands” to keep them busy. And then I remembered to breathe.

After several minutes of me working the app situation, the cashier called me back over to the register and handed me a receipt, telling me, “Here you go. It’s paid for. It’s on me. Enjoy your meal.” I was stunned by the generosity and sincerely thanked her! Reading the receipt, it looked like she actually paid for the meal personally vs. using a discount code or comping it.

The part of the story the cashier didn’t know is that my son’s two friends come from an insecure food situation at home. I try to invite them over for snacks and meals as often as possible. They hadn’t eaten yet, and this cafeteria meal with us was likely to be their only one today. My gratefulness for this cashier’s generosity went deeper than her simply saving me the embarrassment of a missing wallet. Her kindness ensured these boys had food for the day — literally.

After our meal, I went back to the registers to thank her again and find out if I could reimburse her now, as I’d finally gotten the app working on my phone. But she was gone, and the other workers weren’t sure of her name because she was new. I made sure to write to the company with everything I’ve shared here and tell them how awesome their cashier was to us.