dinner rolls

I was at the bakery the other day and there was a woman in front of me. She was with her son, who looked about ten.

When the bakery.lady came up, smiled and said: ‘hi! How can I help you today?’ the woman made no eye contact, didn’t smile back or say hi. She just barked: ‘I’ll have ten dinner rolls’. That was it.

Then she paid, handed over her money, didn’t reply when the bakery.lady said thank you and goodbye, and left with her son trailing silently behind her.

It got me thinking. We all have bad days. [Lordy! I know I do]. When everything is a struggle and you feel pretty rotten and not.yourself you’d just rather be curled up under your doona. But even on those days [maybe especially on those days] I reckon it’s really important to be kind and courteous. To be the kind of person you would feel good selling dinner rolls to, if you worked in a bakery.

I worry that I judged that lady. I hope I didn’t. Maybe I did but then I reversed it. I tried to use the experience as a reminder, of how I want to be. Of how I want my daughter to see me treating others and engaging with the world.

When the bakery.lady smiled at me and said hi, I smiled back. I made eye contact, I asked her for my loaf of bread and then I said thank you.

Tags: kindness, mindfulness, values