Strangers=Friends

While working at my retail job yesterday I encountered a middle aged woman who had four young children with her. As I was helping another customer in line in front of her, the children were as energetic as most are. Also, they were not paying attention to their surroundings, go figure. I heard the mother say, ‘Hey guys, let’s wait until the man is done helping our friend first’. I kept doing what I normally do at the register and scanned products like a good little worker bee.

Once I was finished with the customer who was there, she walked up with her kids. As I scanned her items, she was juggling her children and bagging groceries at the same time. She literally had her hands full, while behind her one of the kids almost bumped into another person in another line. The mom politely turned to the child again and says, ‘Be careful and watch out for our friends around us’. That’s when it hit me. She kept calling perfect strangers, ‘Friends’. At first I thought it was possible that she could have been friends with the woman in front of her, but I doubted that she could be friends with all of those people.

I see a lot of mothers who come in with several kids all the time. Usually they are stressed and in a hurry. Sometimes they are rude and will grab their child by the arm to pull them out of the way in those circumstances. This is the reason why she stood out. She glowed with positivity. It was so refreshing. I was really tired, at the end of a long couple of days and ready for a nap. This woman perked me right up and made my day.

Upon hearing this mom use this positive way of correcting her children the second time, I immediately stopped everything and commended her. She was a little caught off guard because I stopped scanning her items just to compliment her. After she thanked me she went on to explain that she heard this at the daycare where she takes her children. I fired back with, ‘That’s wonderful, keep taking your children there, that is a great daycare’.

In this world where we see a lot of negative and wrong things happen every day, it really comforts me to know there are some people out there who are still doing things right.

A new thing I am choosing to do is being friendlier. Now, I already consider myself a friendly person, but I’m going to stretch myself even a little more and talk to strangers more often, especially if I am in an awkward tight space like an elevator or something to that effect. You never know what might happen because of it.

The other day I was flying back to Charlotte, NC from California. Normally, I would probably not talk to the lovely lady who sat next to me. Sure, I would have been polite but this time I started off with a little humor to break the ice. Eventually I shared some cookies with her. By the end of the flight we exchanged numbers and planned on meeting for a drink sometime. I started out talking to a perfect stranger and ended with a new friend.