The 30-something-year-old Target customer

Here's a story that may help you regain a morsel of faith in society...

It was a typical Tuesday evening cashiering at Target; consistent lines of customers whom offered some meaningless small-talk to the overgrown kid in a red shirt wearing a bullseye nametag. One woman came through my line with a heaping cart of grocery items, and I refrained from rolling my eyes at her as I saw the three or four customers waiting behind her with only a handful of items (side note: That was something that always peeved me about the retail business--you really get a glimpse into the inconsiderate nature of most consumers. If it were up to me, the order in which a customer could check-out would not only be determined by the time they stepped in line, but also by how many items they have to be scanned. Common courtesy would suggest that you should allow the nice old lady standing behind you with only one item to checkout before you, no?).

This lady was.. unpleasant (euphemism for angry, nasty, rude), but I continued to try to make small-talk as she put more and more cans of soup and tomatoes on my conveyer belt. "Nice weather today, huh?" can usually only conjure up about a 30 second conversation at the most. Finally, I finished scanning her items, as I could sense the customers behind her becoming more and more impatient. Her total was somewhere in the neighborhood of $190, and after she handed me a sweaty glop of coupons from her pocket, the total dropped down around the $180 mark. She looked nervous as she handed me a gift card for $150, leaving a remaining balance of $30 displaying on the screen. She started scratching her head and said, "I don't have enough, I'll be right back" and ran to the ATM on the opposite end of the checkout lanes. I looked behind me to the elongated line of Target guests, and garnered up a meek apology. The 30-something-year-old man who was next up in line, and already had all of his items on the conveyer belt, nudged a little closer to me and said "Hey man, why don't you let me just pay for this woman's stuff, and then we can all get going."

At first, I was shocked, and nervous. This was something that I was sure my store managers and the higher-up corporate executives would frown upon, but I'm kind of soft and not firm around strangers, so I said "Okay, sure." He swiped his card through the machine right as the woman who had ran to the ATM was coming back. She was shell-shocked by the gesture made by this man, and offered him everything under the sun besides sexual favors in return. He refused all of her offers and simply said "Pay it forward, right?"

Right.

I guarantee the few individuals who bared witness to this event will think about the act made by this 30-something-year-old man the next time they are confronted with a similar dilemma. Charitable acts never go unnoticed, and its always enlightening to see that amidst all of the recent tragedies, the recent struggles, the recent deaths, the recent displays of ill intent from humanity, there ARE still good people out there in the world. All you can do is keep your faith that a few of these good people will show their colors to you someday.

-Jack