Tears, Traffic & Twenty Dollars

Webster's dictionary defines happy as delighted, pleased, or glad, as over a particular thing: to be happy to see a person, a happy mood; a happy frame of mind.

All of the above take place on our little corner of 2nd Avenue each day. It's rather difficult to walk through our doors and not be happy. I wrote in a social media post last year that I think of myself as a host of a fabulous party each morning as I drive to the shop.  It's my job to make sure each of my customers has a fabulous time while they're here. I set high expectations for myself and my vendors.  But alas, even the best efforts at achieving optimal party perfection are sometimes thwarted, as they were this past Friday.  In the blink of an eye I went from happy to feeling like Marlin in my son's favorite movie, "Finding Nemo", when he said to Dory, "good feeling gone."

I won't bore you with the details, but I will say that a customer left quite disappointed.  So much so, that she raised her voice to me for what seemed like an hour, but was probably no more than thirty seconds.  I held back tears while apologizing but I finally chose silence and just let her finish her rant.

I can't remember the last time I was spoken to that way.  No one likes to be yelled at, it's humiliating.  Once she left, I went to the back of the shop, had a quick cry, then pulled myself together. Like many women, I'm a pro at pretending everything is fine even when it's not.  I learned a long time ago that there's not much red lipstick and a pretty dress can't make right, even if temporarily, and I was in possession of both.

The rest of the afternoon went by smoothly.  However, in between customers I would hear that woman yelling at me and get teary eyed.  On the drive home that night, I convinced myself that she was just a bully and even if a unicorn shoved a magic wand where the sun cannot shine while Julie Garland sang "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", she would still be a mean cotton-headed ninny muggin. ​

I may be fifty, but my insults still hover around ten years of age.  

The next morning was Saturday.  Autumn was in the air! And even though I woke up thinking about the horrible rant I received the day before and how I could make it right, I was not going to let it occupy my thoughts.  Well, I was going to try anyway.  I'm a Virgo after all, we over think everything.

The shop was filled with customers from the moment I opened the door.  Music filled the air, customers were dancing in place while shopping and I met a wonderful couple who, like me, were from California.  It was a beautiful day.  The hours flew by and just like that it was after five o'clock.

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As the last of the customers trickled out the door, a lady walked in, she looked exhausted.  She had been upstairs most of the day taking down the decorations from the wedding that took place the night before.  She wanted to know if it was all right to park in front of my shop with her truck and U-Haul to load everything up.  I told her of course it was, but with all the parking spots still full, I wasn't too sure how she was going to pull that off.  I walked outside with her and I located the owners of the cars in front of the shop.  Within a few minutes, we had almost enough room.  I told her I would move my car and then she would be good to go.  In the time it took me to move my car across the street, two more cars were about to park in the spaces we had just cleared.  I'm not sure what came over me, but I placed myself in front of these vehicles and told them they would have to park somewhere else. I can only imagine what I looked like, standing in the middle of 2nd Avenue in a dress, with my big hair, while wearing leopard print slippers, stopping traffic. But it was exactly where I needed to be. Ok, maybe not in front of a slow moving vehicle, but I needed to help somebody.  All at once I felt better.

With my newly discovered traffic skills in use, my friend was able to pull her vehicle into place and load up.  I walked back inside the shop full of smiles and thinking to myself how just 24 hours earlier, I was in tears over someone's actions and now there was a bounce in my step and a much needed smile on my face.  My mom taught me years ago that sometimes doing something for someone else when you are feeling down can make you feel better.  Once again, she was right.

Now, here's where my story takes a surprising turn.  I promise, we're almost to the end.

I was finishing up with a customer, when the lady with the U-Haul came up to the counter.  She handed me a $20 bill and said "thank you". I immediately replied, "what is this for?!?"  She said that no one had ever been that kind to her.  She went on to say, "you stopped what you were doing, came outside, convinced people to move their cars, then moved yours across the street and then your crazy behind stood in front of two moving vehicles so they wouldn't take my spots. I've never met anyone like you."

I chased her as she walked out the door and tried to return her money.  As she got in her vehicle, I attempted to toss the $20 bill into her car, but she was a step ahead of me and rolled up her window.  We both laughed and I accepted defeat.  

I know that woman has no idea how much helping her meant to me.  When I got back inside the shop, I wrote a letter to the irate customer from the day before, apologizing for the mix-up and included a $25 gift certificate.  If that small gesture puts a smile on her face even half the size of mine, I think happiness will have been restored.

Small gestures, random acts of kindness and vino.  Let's have more of that!
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"When you're having what you feel like is a "bad day" and then someone comes along out of nowhere and extends to you the simplest of kind gestures, you feel it so deeply within your soul."

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