A Feel-Good Moment

On the way home from Kara’s Open House at her school last Thursday, we stopped by the store to pick up some much needed milk. I left them in the truck while I ran in to the store to get some. There were only two check stands open so I picked what looked like to me the lesser of the two, behind a man who had a bunch of bananas. The woman in front of the banana man told him that he could go ahead of her, because she had a basket filled to the brim with groceries. He graciously stepped in front of her, which left only me at the end.

She then looked at me and my milk and said, “You can go ahead of me too if you’d like.”

I was feeling a tad philosophical, so I quipped, “You can’t let everyone in front of you. Plus, I’ve got all night.”

“No, really,” she responded, motioning to the carton in my hand. “You only have milk.”

“It’s okay. I’m fine,” I said, and I’m not sure what made me say what I said next, but by the time I realized it, I had already said it: “Usually things work out well for me.” It was an odd thing to say just at that moment, and I’m sure that poor woman didn’t know what I meant by it. She faintly smiled and returned back to empting her cart.

Just then, and I mean less than five seconds after my quizzical comment, another checker comes out of nowhere, steps up to me and says, “Sir, I can help you on three.” And I went from being the last in line to the first in line.

It was a rare moment when I was given that wonderful “I control the fates of the universe” feeling.