Pay It Forward

I worked at both Gap and Pier 1 today. I got to Pier 1 and started helping a customer with some wicker furniture. She had all sorts of questions about the wicker rocker and how well it matched with another set of wicker chairs, and love seats. It's been a lot of fun to offer my opinion to people on what I think looks good and actually having some agree with me! After spending a good twenty minutes talking about wicker chairs, I showed her our baskets and scents. She loved the diffuser idea. I currently love the scent called Citrus Cilantro. It's great! Anyway, I also mentioned there were some great dishes on sale and walked her over to the set I loved. It's also the set we've sold many of and only had one left in the store. In fact, earlier that day I had been doing mental calculations to see how much it would cost if I bought if myself. Not wanting to take it from a customer who may want it more than me, I was happy trying to sell it to another customer. I found out this customer didn't have green and blue in her kitchen and moved to some yellow dishes. Somehow it came up I loved those dishes and considered buying them but wouldn't until after my shift ended several hours later. She noted there was only one left and insisted she buy them for me right then. I declined several times, but she told me a story about how she went out to eat and someone had given her a coupon out of the blue at the resturaunt which covered half her bill. She wanted to do something like that for someone else. I tried to decline once more but she insisted. The dish set was 25 dollars. She bought a few other small things along with the dishes. After ringing her up, I walked around the counter and asked if I could give her a hug. She smiled and agreed. I am so grateful for people like her who do acts of kindness like that. I have no way of contacting her to send or give her a thank you note. The only way I can thank her is to do a kind deed like that for someone else. Pay it forward.