I went to the movies the other day. My local theater is on the same stretch of block as a supermarket- they are four stores away from each other.

So I leave the theater. A youngish couple is in front of me- early twenties if I had to guess. There was a produce bag with two avocados in it sitting in the middle of the sidewalk. The young man picked up the bag and put it on the ledge window of the store to the right.

An older gentleman was behind me.

“You know there are garbage cans.”

The kid responds that he was picking it up and moving it out of the way. I know this because I was four feet behind them and could see this all clearly.

The old man behind me keeps saying obnoxious things to the young man.

I turn around, look right at the older guy and say:

“Hey- the bag was obviously groceries that someone dropped. He picked up the bag to put it out of the way in case the person realizes that they dropped it. What he did was the right thing. Stop giving him grief and shut up.”

The young man started laughing, told me Thank You, and then said- “Ok- this discussion is now closed.”

So what did we learn?

  1. Be really sure about what you think you see before you say something
  2. There are people who are trying to do the right thing
  3. There are experiences out there just waiting to be discovered

40 thoughts on “Anything Can Happen Friday- You saw what…”

  2. I’ve been noticing this a lot lately. It seems almost everyone is looking through crud covered glasses, everyone and everything is seen as negative.

    I don’t get it. Sure there’s stuff to be mad about in the world, but why add to it? Assume positive intent, assume you don’t have all the pieces, and see the beauty.

    It seems most of us are trying our very best to live in misery.

    Good on you for saying something. I don’t think I would have. I would want to, but lately I’ve been so timid of people…

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  5. both of the first two choices. Well done on speaking up – bold to say shut up as well. Hundreds of people would have walked around that bag all day and I commend the young man for taking a few seconds of the day to make a difference. I would have fist bumped him in front of the whiner.

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  7. There’s a lot of anger going around. On our vacation there was road construction everywhere and people got annoyed. Once when we were stopped waiting for the worker with the “stop” sign to switch to “slow” we were stuck with the back half of our car on railroad tracks. My husband honked at the large pick up in front of us to move forward. Then my husband unrolled the window and yelled for him to move up. Finally, my husband pulled the car forward next to the truck who left us stranded on the tracks. The guy unrolled his window and flipped us off, yelled at us about what was our hurry and how rude we were. Then the sign changed to slow and he drove away, unaware that he had us stuck on the railroad tracks. Your story reminded me that this guy had no clue to the whole story.

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  8. I applaud you for speaking out. Just because the grumpy gent was older, it didn’t make him wiser. Sometimes you have to stand up for someone who is wrongfully accused. It was Brave to do and also necessary. Kudos to you! I bet the older guy is used to bullying others.

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  9. At some point I would have expected the younger man to just tune out the haranguing older man. Good of you to step in. Geez. I don’t think this is a modern phenomenon at all. People have always been this way.

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  11. I’m glad you spoke up! The young man did the right thing, in my opinion, if the food was still good. Someone might well come back for it. And if the older man wanted it thrown away, why didn’t he do that himself instead of hassling someone else? Some people are just looking for something, or someone, to criticize. Thank you for defending that young man!

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  12. My takeaways:
    1. That was a really good “kid.” There is hope for our future after all.
    2. The man was a curmudgeon, and you and the kid showed remarkable restraint with him.
    3. Assumptions and judgements are dangerous. Think twice, speak once.

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