I go to Lowes, a LOT. I won’t ask for loading help at Lowes. When you ask for loading help at my Lowes, you get a guy named Rich. His job is to help people load items into their vehicles and to retrieve shopping carts. Rich does not like to lift stuff. He whines and complains and calls on the walkie-talkie for back-up. By the time his help arrives, you already have your items loaded in the car. I always leave feeling embarrassed and humiliated that I asked for help. So I stopped asking for help. If I can’t load it myself, I don’t buy it.
I have had men stand by my car, in the disabled space, waiting for me to finish loading bags of cement from a flatbed cart, so that they could use the cart. A few months ago I broke out the Hummer windshield trying to load a 4×4 into the car by myself. It ended up being a $400.00 piece of wood, counting the new windshield. Only once has anyone asked me if I needed help when I was struggling to get something in the car. I declined the offer because it was the last piece of whatever-I-bought that I was loading.
I was lifting 40 pound bags of ready mix into the car a few weeks ago when a young man approached me. I thought “Oh, how nice, he is going to offer to help.” Au contraire, he told me that his car was out of gas and asked me for money to put fuel in his car so he could go to work. I gave him a few bucks and he walked away with my money, leaving me loading bags of cement into my car in the disabled parking space. When I finished I drove across the street to Starbucks for a coffee and, lo and behold, who was ahead of me in line? The guy I just gave gas money to, ordering a $6.00 coffee. As improbable as it may seem, the very next day, at the very same Lowes, the very same guy asked me for gas money again. I told him “no” and said that I had given him money the day before and he went to Starbucks. He walked away, without my money this time. I finished loading my car.
Today, Michael and I went to Lowes and bought six bags of potting soil, four big plants, a tree rose, and two big shade trees. We were in the parking lot figuring out how we were going to get it all in the Hummer. A young man approached us and asked “are you going to be able to get all that in the car?” I rolled my eyes and mouthed the word “no” so Michael wouldn’t hear. He then asked where we lived. I told him and he offered to load the stuff in his truck and drive it to our house! I was shocked. Realizing that there was no way we were going to get the loot in the Hummer, we accepted his kind offer. I drove home with the potting soil and plants and Michael rode home in the kind stranger’s truck with our trees in the back.
I beat them home and hurried inside to put together a dozen of my largest, freshest eggs to give to the kind stranger who delivered my trees.
Here is the truck backing into my driveway.
Meet Pete, the kind stranger who shocked the hell out of me at Lowes today. Pete came out back and met the chickens and goats. Of course, Donovan had to act badly and jump on Pete. Sorry Pete, we’re working on that.
My blog is about everyday miracles and mayhem. A random act of kindness? At Lowes no less. Now that’s a miracle!