It’s Sunday afternoon. I wanted to get one last item for the holidays – actually, I wanted to purchase a small pane of glass to replace a broken glass pane in one of my pictures. And since it was Sunday, I couldn’t go to Hobby Lobby to get the pane of glass – so I went to the other nearby art and hobby store, A.C. Moore.
The parking lot was kinda full, but there were people pulling in and out of parking spots on a semi-regular basis. Now if you’ve read my blog with any smidgeon of regularity, you know that I’ve written at least two different blogs about holiday parking. One incident turned out terribly; another almost turned into an argument.
This time, something different happened.
As I snaked through the parking lot, looking for someone to pull out of their spot, lo and behold someone was backing their car out of a parking spot – that was two spots away from the front door of A.C. Moore. Awesome.
Another car pulled up behind me. And at the same time, a second car in front of me started to back out of THEIR parking spot.
Well, I’m feeling charitable today. I rolled down my window, stuck my arm out, and waved to the driver behind me. I pointed at the driver, then pointed to the left. I repeated the gesture so that the driver knew that I wasn’t giving him the finger. In other words, I told him to take the spot two spots from the front door of A.C. Moore, and I would take the spot from the second parked car that was also pulling out.
The car to my left pulled out. The car behind me drove around me and waved thank-you at me.
The car to my right pulled out – and it was only after he completely pulled out and drove away, did I realize that the second car was in a handicapped parking spot. Aw, nertz.
No matter. I’ll just find another parking spot – which I did two minutes later – and went into A.C. Moore to make my purchases.
Ah, here’s the replacement glass pane and backing. I picked up a couple of other supplies… then went to pay for everything. I figured I must have purchased at least fifteen dollars worth of merchandise. Time to cash out.
“Thank you for shopping at A.C. Moore,” the cashier said to me. “Do you have one of our rewards cards?”
“No,” I replied.
“That’s okay. And here’s your total.”
I looked at the cash register. Okay, something’s wrong here. I know I bought about $15 worth of goods, so why does the receipt say I spent less than $5?
“I’m sorry,” I said, “did you get all my purchases?”
“Yes I did sir,” the cashier smiled. “I just used this coupon here to save you some money. Thank you for shopping at A.C. Moore.”
Wow. I was definitely NOT expecting that. Which is fine by me.
Maybe sometimes there is good karma in this world. Do something nice for someone, and it comes back to you. And I’ll take that every day of the week.
Especially around Christmastime.
Chuck The Writer 
Brings to mind the occasional cashier at the Cobleskill Price Chopper.
“Do you have your Advantage Card?”
“No, I don’t have one.”
Then they will (sometimes) scan the magic bar code that’s taped to the register, so I can get a few bucks off my total. But, sometimes not.
And I can tell you from personal experience that there most certainly I$ something to that karma thing. But the “trick,” as you alluded to, is that you don’t give with the EXPECTATION of getting something back.
Merry Christmas, Chuck!
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I love when that happens. It’s true “What goes around comes around”. It doesn’t always happen on the spot, but when it does, it’s truly magic. Enjoy your Christmas holiday Chuck!
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Just to follow up, I submit that karma takes different forms.
This is a tough area, economically. And hundreds of kids out this way faced a non-Christmas, despite the best efforts of charitable organizations, which put out an 11th hour plea for help:
http://timesjournalonline.com/details.asp?id=87805
After reading that, I stopped by their offices with, lets just say, a healthy donation — hoping to help them get closer to their goal. NO WAY, I thought, should kids be deprived of the magical Christmas that I got to enjoy decades ago.
I just learned how they made out:
http://timesjournalonline.com/details.asp?id=87999
Karma enough: It was MOST rewarding, just knowing that I was a part of that effort.
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Make A. C. Moore your first choice, based not only on your recent experience there, but they don’t have a political agenda like Hobby Lobby does.
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That’s a lot better story than my 2013 parking lot incident. Someone keyed my drivers side door, someone who mistakenly thought they were waiting for a parking space longer than I was. (They weren’t – I was sitting there with my directional on when I saw them whip around the corner.) This was in Stuyvesant Plaza. While I certainly couldn’t prove that the driver of this car did it, it’s very seldom that your car gets keyed for no reason.
If karma is indeed a b***h, then they’ve got it coming in spades.
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A nice story.
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