My mom is 32 years older than I am…always has been. It’s a fact. So it makes sense that we aren’t always on the same page about things. Lately we’ve disagreed about church attendance and appropriate levels of dating anxiety, just for example. But tonight at HyVee (and you guys, just to add to the collective goodwill in Springfield toward this grocery store: it is the shit. [ps Mom wouldn't enjoy me saying "the shit." Sorry, FLJ.]), I caught a glimpse of one way in which we are 100% alike.
We met at HyVee after work for some shiny new salad bar. This was Mom’s first venture to The Store. After we ate, we explored the aisles and walked away with some treasures (most notably: Nut Thins. THEY HAVE BBQ FLAVORED NUT THINS THERE. See: “the shit”). On our way out, we spy a cell phone in the parking lot. For a minute or two we plot what to do: leave it there in case they come back? place it on top of the car it’s next to? take it inside?
One thing I know for sure: many of my RA-friendly tendencies came from my mother:
The craftiness and impulse to make things for others.
The good-kid social butterfly-ness.
The impulse to help people, even when I don’t have to.
Those instincts came into play for both of us tonight, and we walked the phone back inside to the customer service desk. And wouldn’t you know it…there’s a lady there (older, a bit scattered, and, if the aforementioned car was actually hers, a bit of a hoarder) looking for her phone. The HyVee guy behind the counter makes the connection, and Mom and I—much like an overly-enthusastic Kristen Wiig character farce—go, in unison, “YAAAAAY!” Just as excited as we can be. In the front of HyVee. Not an ounce of shame.
(In our defense, it’s rare to so immediately experience the happy ending to a random act of kindness. And also we’re weirdos.)
This, I owe to you, dearest mother. Some of my favorite parts of myself: the part that returns the cell phone, and the part that isn’t afraid to say, “YAY!”
