To be clear, before writing this, I have not googled the true meaning of “Pay it Forward.” I am sure there are lots of websites out there which would tell me how and why to choose a person to pay it forward. I can’t say it was a goal of mine to pay it forward. Stories of an endless line of Starbucks customers buying the coffee order of the person behind them strike me as kind of weird. And Privileged. I mean, you wouldn’t go order at a Starbucks drive through if you couldn’t pay your bill, would you?^[1]

Because we were close to running out of juice and milk^[2], and because my first meeting didn’t start until 10am^[3], I decided to go to the grocery^[4] after the kids got in the school bus. The best thing about that grocery is the app which lets you scan as you go and then just scan at a self-checkout and pay with a credit or debit card^[5].

Even though there were 12 self-checkout stations, only 6 were open at 7:30am. I noticed a gentleman who was ringing up two bunches of tulips who opened his wallet to put cash in the machine. He didn’t notice that the signs all said, “NO CASH ACCEPTED.”^[6]

He looked confused and finally got the person assigned to watch the self-checkout lanes to come over who said he would have to cancel the transaction and go over to a lane with a person to check him out. I saw his face express a huge sigh.

Was he running late? Just frustrated with himself? Annoyed that he hadn’t noticed the sign? Had he used the self-checkout before when it did accept cash and now he was annoyed they changed the rules?

I have felt all of those things going out and about in the world and encountering a situation that changed or wasn’t working as it was “supposed to” and I almost always blame myself in these situations^[7].

So, with mask and sunglasses on, and basically still in my pajamas, I stepped away from my self-checkout and said to the clerk, “No – hold on,” and waived my credit card over his terminal and bought the tulips^[8].

He looked at me saying thank you with a half-smile, and he offered to give me cash. I said, “No way! It’s my first Pay it Forward.”

Maybe I should have been willing to take his cash. I mean, the kindness was saving his time. He could obviously afford the flowers. But I didn’t.

He said, “Let me give you a flower,” with his eyes lighting up. I said that wasn’t necessary, but he insisted.

But he couldn’t get the tulip free.

I still had to pay for my groceries, and when I was done, I turned around and he handed me a tulip with a full smile and another, “Thank you.”

Maybe I finally get it. Pay it Forward isn’t as much about giving money to other people, it is a community response that we help each other get about a changing world with changing rules and signs that don’t register in our brains before we go forward expecting things to work the way they used to work.

The tulip sits on my kitchen counter. At first, being mixed in with my groceries, it was droopy. Now that it has had water, it is standing tall, and the bloom is tentatively opening reminding me we all need to give and take a little help and appreciate the kindness of strangers.

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^[1] Yes, I am that naïve, but I will just be ok with me this way.

^[2] A common occurrence in our house. I usually just ask BigOne to stop on their way home from school.

^[3] An uncommon occurrence in our house.

^[4] Wegman’s of course.

^[5] No cash accepted. It’s relevant to the story. Read on!

^[6] Isn’t it funny how sometimes, the larger the sign, the more our brains can ignore what they say?

^[7] Sometime, we will revisit the frustration of buying train tickets at the Frankfurt Airport. If I return there and once again encounter the machine that says it will take a credit card and doesn’t say it has to be a European credit card. Thank god for apps!

^[8] There just had to be a story that included, “Must buy tulips at 7:30am on a Friday morning.” An example of Sonder that I will never know what that story is.