A few weeks ago, I was standing in line at a drugstore in Northwest Baltimore behind an older gentleman wearing an open shirt and a leather jacket. The only reason I noticed him was because of the back of his shiny black jacket. We exchanged glances but didn’t chat. Just two strangers in line, deep in our thoughts.
After I paid the cashier and stepped outside, I saw the man standing on the sidewalk. I figured he was checking his phone or grabbing a smoke, but sensed he might be waiting for me. When I made my way to the parking lot, I heard him say, “I have to say thank you. You reawakened my faith in humanity.”
Quite a lofty statement. At first, I thought he was speaking to someone else. But I looked over and saw him gazing at me. I said, “Beg your pardon?”
The man smiled warmly, almost fatherly. He reiterated, “I have to say thank you.”
Perhaps I should have nodded and kept walking. Plenty of meshugah people in this world. But the man’s manner was reassuring and inviting. “Do we know each other, sir?” I asked.
He told me while we were in the store, I walked down one of the aisles while he was scanning the shelves. As I passed by, he claimed that I said, “Excuse me.”
For a moment we stood there, awkwardly, and I wasn’t sure what to say. “I … don’t remember that,” I confessed. “You sure it was me?”
The man was insistent. “Yes, it was definitely you,” he said. “People don’t have manners anymore. You can’t believe how many people walk in front of me and don’t say excuse me. People have lost the capacity for the simplest gestures. When I was a kid, I’d get smacked across my head by my mother or grandmother if I didn’t say excuse me.”
We both laughed. I assured the man I’m not always so consciously courteous, and my family could confirm I’m far from the most thoughtful or polite individual in “Charm City.” The Dalai Lama I ain’t.
“Well, you were polite today,” he said, grinning. “So thank you, I appreciate it.”
Of course, I was flattered by the man’s gratitude, even if I didn’t remember the incident. But it made me think, “Have we really gotten so far afield as a culture that people will heap praise upon you merely for saying, ‘Excuse me’?”
I thought about this exchange while chatting recently with Barbara Collurafici, co-owner of The Gourmet Girls market and café in Pikesville. Last month, The Gourmet Girls faced a nightmare scenario when on the eve of Passover, their busiest season, a refrigeration glitch ruined approximately 250 pre-paid seder meals.
Pikesville customers are notoriously tough, and Collurafici confirmed that a few were rather ornery when informed their holiday meals needed to be thrown away.
“But most of our customers were very nice about it,” she said. “Some told us they didn’t even want to be reimbursed, recognizing we’re a small local business. It felt good to know we have such loyal customers.”
We never know how we touch people with everyday gestures of benevolence, whether big or small, conscious or unconscious. As the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks once wrote, “Acts of kindness never die. They linger in the memory, giving life to other acts in return.” We all could stand to remember that the next time someone opens a door for us at a store or cuts us some slack for an unintentional mistake.
Sincerely,
Alan Feiler, Editor-in-Chief
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