So, the other day, I nipped into a nearby Shoppers Drug Mart to pick up some random groceries -- milk, toilet paper, cat food, the like, and I happened to pick up two of those long boxes of 12 cans of soda pop. Shoppers has these small-ish carts that would be laughed out of the store in any Zehr's supermarket, so the two boxes of cans aren't really sitting very securely. Sure enough, as I pull up to the self-serve checkout (I tend to use these nowadays to keep points of contact limited and to slow any spread of infection), one of the cans tips out of the cart, falls to the floor and bursts open, sending two cans skittering away.
I let out what can only be described as a whine. "Oh!" It's the sort of thing you say when you've had a day of being nibbled to death by ducks and really, this is just one more thing that you didn't need, and why?
Except, only two cans fall out of the box, and none of them puncture and fizz. All told, it could have been much worse. And I'm telling myself that as I pick up the fallen cans, put them back in their box and enter them into the self-serve checkout when the manager comes over and touches the screen.
"Here," she says. "I'll give you a seniors discount."
Note: I'm 50.
Well, this kind gesture didn't quite go off as planned because of minor computer problems that required the manager to call in a second manager to property key in my discount, but that left me some time to reflect on the fact that this was my first ever seniors discount, and how nice these workers were for responding to my momentary distress with this random act of kindness.
That is the sole reason why they gave me the seniors discount, right?
Right?