This is a story about mean people and nice people...
Mean people...
So about two months ago, I was in the Costco parking lot in no hurry, on my way home. I was feeling totally zapped from having just spent like two hours in the store totally wiping my kids out and I was just in a zone. I drove to a T in the parking lot where I turned left to head out of the parking lot. About 1/2 mile AWAY, after sitting at four traffic lights, I wound up with this car on my right side that to my knowledge I'd never seen in my entire life. It was a white sports car. The drivers wanted me to roll my window down, so I did. The driver, a woman, looked to be about sixty years old and she had the look of a soap opera star, kind of materialistic and overly made up...a little bit fancy. Anyway, she said, "You just ran a stop sign in the Costco parking lot."
I was slow to respond because I couldn't really imagine where this had occurred and why it would have bothered her. I recalled that there had been a car I had pulled in front of, but it was at least two aisles away going the standard 10mph in the parking lot and I had in no way cut anyone off. Hmmmm. I didn't have much to say. I think I said, "I did? Oh."
Then her kept man in the passenger seat leaned so I could see his friendly face and said, "Did they teach you that at BYU?" (I have an alum thing around my licence plate.)
I was baffled. I just didn't really know what to say, which is most definitely NOT LIKE ME. I was just processing when the woman got really General Hospital on me and said in a really dragged out, slow and dramatic way, "You're a gooooooood Mormon. You're a goooooooood Mormon."
Then the light turned green and we rolled up our windows and drove away. I drove next to them for some time thinking, "I'd rather be guilty of running a stop sign in a parking lot than chewing out a complete stranger!"
Nice people:
Today in the Costco parking lot, we were walking out with our cart and this old minivan was driving by and came suddenly to a stop next to us. There was this old man inside with a flannel shirt and a baseball cap on. He reached behind him and came enthusiastically out of the van with two brand new teddy bears in hand. He showed them to the girls and asked them to pick the one they wanted. They were super excited and so was he. He told me that he'd been doing this since Christmas and gets the bears really cheap and just loves making kids happy. We all said thanks and he was on his merry way.
It is just so nice to run into nice people!
8 comments:
what the heck?
that is the weirdest thing ever...
i am sorry there are crazy soap opera people frequenting your costco. thank goodness for the teddy bear man.
It is nice that when it is all said and done, you can feel sorry for people who get raised blood pressure and waste their time being angry at people. Minus the fact that they are trying to make you feel like crap in any way that they can. Yes, thank goodness that there are good people out there like teddy bear man still!
wow, that first one...wierd. Maybe they WERE practicing for their next soap opera episode. =) That's really cool that old man was doing that with the teddy bears though. What a fun idea.
I can picture that old soap opera lady and her fancy schmancy clothes and car. I think I would have laughed out loud. Just to throw her off. You should have asked if she was a good mormon too. Or if she was just nasty like that to everyone. Only in my mind can I have conversations like this. I, like you, would have been too stunned to think of anything clever to say. Is it sad that when you told about the teddy bear man I thought he might have been some kind of child kidnapper type trying to convince you he was nice?? Man, I must watch too much tv dealing with that stuff.
Rebecca, isn't it funny that we hear these things from random people like that and are so caught off guard. Then we think and think and the more we think about it the more it bothers us. I wish that I had a trash can in my brain like my computer so that I could think about it no more.
sounds like you ran into a snooty (displaced) new yorker. that makes me seethe!
I hate it when people go out of their way to be rude! Grrrrr. And, I'm always amazed at the people, like you and this old man, that go out of their way to be kind.
Wow....just wow! I'm still trying to pick my jaw off the floor from that first person! I can't believe the lengths some people go to just to be rude to someone else!
And yes, YAY for nice people!
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