Now for a story, and as a fair warning, this may get to be more of a rant than anything, but in a good way.
So I'm at the register at work today, waiting out the last hour of work before I get to go home when this somewhat older gentleman walks up to my lane. We start with a bit of small talk to keep the silence at bay, the same old drill I have with most people.
But the crazy thing is, once the order was completed, he kept talking to me. This is already very rare considering that nobody wastes their time talking to a cashier, and since I usually am very difficult to talk to this holds even more true. Finally he gets to asking a question:
"Are you new here? I ask because I don't think I've seen you before."
I don't quite know how to respond since I've been working there for over a year, so I explain that as gently as I can and qualify it that I do normally work the morning shifts so that might be why he never sees me.
Then a follow-up question:
"Have I given you something recently?"
He obviously saw the confusion on my face and took that as a no, because he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small Ziploc bag which contained inside something that looked like a small tongs or a big tweezers of some sort.
He then goes on to tell me how he makes these for people, and that they are toast tongs. He explained that he hand-makes them out of hickory and after sanding them down he coats them in some kind of oil I have never heard of to keep them going for years after the first use. Each one costs him about two dollars to make.
He's given out over fifteen hundred of them to random people he just met.
How is it that such a small and even insignificant gift make my day so much better? I mean I rarely even eat toast, but I have resolved to eat more toast simply so I can give this gift the proper use it deserves. This guy just gives them out to people simply because he wants to. He's spent over three thousand dollars making these little gifts for people. Because of this man's random act of kindness I am in a mood that I just can't get down from.
So for discussion value, I ask you this:
Do you have a person who has done something like this? Let this thread be one of happy-faced stories.
Additionally, since I don't even know this man's name, when I tell this story to people, what should I call him? All I've come up with so far is Mr. Toast, but that seems to only serve to diminish and mock the gift he gave me.
So I'm at the register at work today, waiting out the last hour of work before I get to go home when this somewhat older gentleman walks up to my lane. We start with a bit of small talk to keep the silence at bay, the same old drill I have with most people.
But the crazy thing is, once the order was completed, he kept talking to me. This is already very rare considering that nobody wastes their time talking to a cashier, and since I usually am very difficult to talk to this holds even more true. Finally he gets to asking a question:
"Are you new here? I ask because I don't think I've seen you before."
I don't quite know how to respond since I've been working there for over a year, so I explain that as gently as I can and qualify it that I do normally work the morning shifts so that might be why he never sees me.
Then a follow-up question:
"Have I given you something recently?"
He obviously saw the confusion on my face and took that as a no, because he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small Ziploc bag which contained inside something that looked like a small tongs or a big tweezers of some sort.
He then goes on to tell me how he makes these for people, and that they are toast tongs. He explained that he hand-makes them out of hickory and after sanding them down he coats them in some kind of oil I have never heard of to keep them going for years after the first use. Each one costs him about two dollars to make.
He's given out over fifteen hundred of them to random people he just met.
How is it that such a small and even insignificant gift make my day so much better? I mean I rarely even eat toast, but I have resolved to eat more toast simply so I can give this gift the proper use it deserves. This guy just gives them out to people simply because he wants to. He's spent over three thousand dollars making these little gifts for people. Because of this man's random act of kindness I am in a mood that I just can't get down from.
So for discussion value, I ask you this:
Do you have a person who has done something like this? Let this thread be one of happy-faced stories.
Additionally, since I don't even know this man's name, when I tell this story to people, what should I call him? All I've come up with so far is Mr. Toast, but that seems to only serve to diminish and mock the gift he gave me.
