The (un)Kindness of Strangers

Yesterday after a long wait and quick visit at the midwife, I was in a sketchy-ish part of town I’d never been in, tracking down a cheap box spring mattress for Avery’s bed (her old one splintered when she “fell” on it; she denies “jumping”). Callie and Lucy had been pretty patient all afternoon, eating lunch in the car and keeping relatively quiet about how gross it is that the baby is going to come out of there.

Suddenly they had to pee. Both of them. Emergency-like. Because they each have bladders the size of 5-gallon buckets, which is nice most of them time, but means that when they have to go, they have to go. The thrift store I was at didn’t have a bathroom, and I hadn’t completed my purchase so I didn’t want to leave the area. Next door was a Spazazz place. I reached for the door, planning to throw myself on the mercy of the two nicely-dressed women sitting at the reception table. One shook her head and mouthed that they were closed, quickly looking back at her important business.

I stood there for a second, outside the locked door, considering. I knocked again, hoping I could convey that I just really, really needed a bathroom. This time both of them shook their heads frantically, avoided eye contact, and made throat-slashing motions with their hands, not interested at all in the terminally-pregnant woman and her two small daughters.

Today I ran more errands, going to Callie’s kindergarten assessment, picking up my reserved copy of Mockingjay, and getting last-minute food and supplies for school. By the last stop, my feet were swollen past all recognition as feet, my toes like exploding Vienna sausages. A guy in his late twenties hesitantly approached me as I loaded stuff in the car. I turned so sourly to him. He said, “You were ahead of me in line, right?”

“I don’t know.” (and don’t care.)

“I think you left a bag, of binders and notebooks or something?”

I sighed, hugely. All I wanted was a nap. Not to have to thank some stranger for going out of his way, not to have to walk ALL THE WAY BACK INSIDE. But I did, and claimed my stuff. Then I noticed that the guy had also walked back inside to get a Redbox movie. By then I realized what a (self-absorbed, entitled, put-upon) complainer I am, and thanked him nicely on my way out.

Of course the ladies yesterday had no obligation to help me out or even commiserate or anything. But neither did the guy today.

He can have no idea what a difference it made in my thinking. At least for today.