When Hayden and I go into the city there are a few thrift stores that I like to go into.  By the way, why do all of my weird, dramatic stories take place in thrift stores?  Anyway, one of the stores I go into is a Goodwill Outlet that Liv and Hayden both refuse to go into.  That’s fine, because there is a normal Goodwill attached next door.

Let me set the scene for you.

Yesterday, Hayden and I were perusing the books in the normal side for about half an hour before I quickly ran into the outlet to see if there was anything I  wanted to fight someone over needed.  Seriously, these people mean business.  Keep your hands to yourself and DO NOT take a purse into one of these stores.  The rules are completely different here.  If you get a buggy, DO NOT remove your hands from it or take your eyes off of it or you are going to end up in a fist fight over the contents.  I’m not joking!

While we were in the normal side looking at the books, no less than six times someone came over the loudspeaker and said, “Assistance needed at the outlet cashier please”.  I didn’t really think anything about it.  I knew in the back of my mind that it was unusual.  Think about how many times you hear someone calling for assistance in a store.  This was on repeat.

After we bought the books we were getting, Hayden took them to the car and I quickly ran into the outlet to check out the purse section and the books.  While I was looking at the purse and bag bins, I heard twice more someone asking for assistance at the cashier.  I found a 31 cooler in a nice pattern and a very nice Vera Bradley Night and Day black and white crossbody purse and hung them both securely over my arms.  I quickly went through the section with the book bins and didn’t see anything I needed, and made my way to the cashier.

As I’m standing there in line, I’m just patiently waiting my turn and people watching.  There are two groups of people in line in front of me.  The first group finishes up their purchases and leaves.  The woman in front of me steps up and places her items in the bin to be weighed.  The cashier, I notice is standing there staring after the people who are leaving with something in his hand.  And he just keeps standing there staring after them, fretting and muttering under his breath.

The lady in front of me asked him to please ring up her stuff and he gets very flustered and eventually tells her that her items are $1.14.  She tries to hand him $1.14 and he tells her she only owes him $0.53 because he had a slight miscalculation with the previous customer and they left him with extra change which he had applied to HER purchase price.  She just stared at him and tries to hand him the $1.14 which makes him very agitated, and he explained to her again, that she now only owes him $0.53 because he applied the leftover change from the previous customer.  She finally threw up her hands, gave him the $0.53, grabbed her stuff and left.

Now its my turn.  I now have an inkling of why there were repeated calls for help at the cashier station.  I say hello, because that’s my default, I always speak to everyone if they make eye contact with me.  He looks startled for a second and says hello back.  He rings up my two bags and tells me my total is $0.96.  Score!  I hand him a dollar bill…..  I am not making this up…..

He starts chanting under his breath, please work this time, please work this time, please work this time, as he punches in the amount to get my change.  I knew better than to leave him with the four cents.  Heaven help all of the people in line behind me if I did.  Chaching, the cash register opens and he sticks both arms into the air and yells, “YES!” like he’s at a ball game.  He’s dancing in place and says, “Can I have a high five”!?!  He’s already got his arm across the checkout counter waiting, so I said of course and we high fived with six people waiting in line behind me.  He was so, so happy to make change for a dollar and have nothing go wrong.

I smiled and told him to have a great day – he’s still dancing around in place – and smiled at the guy behind me, who actually smiled back!  It seemed to make the cashiers day that I would high five him, smile and say have a great day.  If I had to guess, I may have been the only person to be even slightly pleasant to him that day from his reaction.

The moral of this slightly bizarre tale is to be the good.  Just be the good, people.  You don’t have to ask anyone to high five you, but smile.  Even if you don’t want too.  It might make someone else smile too.

I completely forgot to put the two bags I found at the outlet in my list of thrifty things I found in this post, so hopefully I’ll remember to do it next time.  Have a great rest of the weekend and smile.  And high five someone if you think they won’t punch you in the face instead.