What's so hard about being kind?
Not even kind - considerate. Thoughtful. Going through life paying attention to other people occasionally instead of just looking at what you want or need...
This morning I took Little'un into town to do the week's grocery shopping. In order to pick up what we need at the best prices, I shop around. I take a 65 litre rucksack with me and that's how I get the shopping home afterwards.
I started off in a bargain-basement type shop called QD - we needed some new wooden spoons (after 6 years faithful and regular service, the current ones have unsurprisingly succumbed to leprosy). The shop was quiet, but even so the middle aged lady behind me as I waked towards the tills seemed frustrated at having to wait behind someone. Perhaps she was in a hurry? I wasn't, so I smiled and waved her ahead of me. I did get a thankyou eventually, but it had to wait for the startled blinking to stop.
I moved on to Tesco for cheap chocolate bars for the husbeast's packed lunches and meat for the week's dinners. The man working on the checkout looked thoroughly, hideously bored as the woman whose shopping he was scanning completely ignored him, packed her shopping, paid without a word and walked out, so I smiled and said good morning. He looked up, gave me a huge smile and offered to pack my shopping for me (which as it happened I turned down - I'm a bit obsessive about packing my own groceries).
I went to the pound shop for margarine and tinned pilchards, then took Little'un to Lidl for the bulk of the fruit, veg and other odds and ends that make up a week's worth of food. On the way round a very glamorous looking older lady bent over the pram and smiled at Little'un, receiving a huge gummy grin and a series of squeaks in response. I stopped and chatted to her, agreed that they grow up much too fast, listened as she told me about her grandchildren, and told her she didn't look old enough to have great grandchildren (she really didn't). When I got to the till, she was behind me in the queue. Little'un had had enough and was insisting, increasingly loudly, on coming out of the pram for a good look around, I had all of the shopping to unpack and repack, and the lady unpacking her shopping at the next till had left her shopping trolley so far across the aisle that I couldn't get the pram anywhere near the conveyor belt. Again, I offered to let GlamGran go ahead of me so that I wouldn't be holding her up while I juggled, and she smiled, shook her head, and offered to entertain Little'un for me while I unpacked, paid for and repacked my shopping.
Admittedly that last one probably has more to do with him being a properly handsome and sociable little chap, but I think it probably helped that I'd been friendly to her in the first place.
And it was easy. And it cost me nothing.
This morning I took Little'un into town to do the week's grocery shopping. In order to pick up what we need at the best prices, I shop around. I take a 65 litre rucksack with me and that's how I get the shopping home afterwards.
I started off in a bargain-basement type shop called QD - we needed some new wooden spoons (after 6 years faithful and regular service, the current ones have unsurprisingly succumbed to leprosy). The shop was quiet, but even so the middle aged lady behind me as I waked towards the tills seemed frustrated at having to wait behind someone. Perhaps she was in a hurry? I wasn't, so I smiled and waved her ahead of me. I did get a thankyou eventually, but it had to wait for the startled blinking to stop.
I moved on to Tesco for cheap chocolate bars for the husbeast's packed lunches and meat for the week's dinners. The man working on the checkout looked thoroughly, hideously bored as the woman whose shopping he was scanning completely ignored him, packed her shopping, paid without a word and walked out, so I smiled and said good morning. He looked up, gave me a huge smile and offered to pack my shopping for me (which as it happened I turned down - I'm a bit obsessive about packing my own groceries).
I went to the pound shop for margarine and tinned pilchards, then took Little'un to Lidl for the bulk of the fruit, veg and other odds and ends that make up a week's worth of food. On the way round a very glamorous looking older lady bent over the pram and smiled at Little'un, receiving a huge gummy grin and a series of squeaks in response. I stopped and chatted to her, agreed that they grow up much too fast, listened as she told me about her grandchildren, and told her she didn't look old enough to have great grandchildren (she really didn't). When I got to the till, she was behind me in the queue. Little'un had had enough and was insisting, increasingly loudly, on coming out of the pram for a good look around, I had all of the shopping to unpack and repack, and the lady unpacking her shopping at the next till had left her shopping trolley so far across the aisle that I couldn't get the pram anywhere near the conveyor belt. Again, I offered to let GlamGran go ahead of me so that I wouldn't be holding her up while I juggled, and she smiled, shook her head, and offered to entertain Little'un for me while I unpacked, paid for and repacked my shopping.
Admittedly that last one probably has more to do with him being a properly handsome and sociable little chap, but I think it probably helped that I'd been friendly to her in the first place.
And it was easy. And it cost me nothing.
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