Southern hospitality at its finest.

I made a quick trip into Kroger this evening to buy the essentials, i.e. Oreos, tortillas, Coke Zero, milk, bread, and ham. Apparently Kroger is *the* place to be on Saturday night. It was crazy busy, but, I guess since it was Saturday night and anyone who goes to Kroger on Saturday probably doesn't have a jammed-packed calendar, everyone was very laid back and moving lazily throughout the aisles. In fact, there were several times when people met at the intersection of aisles and kept insisting on letting other people go in front of them, just like at 4 way stops. Everyone is too busy being polite that no one moves at all.

Once I got to the check out line, I was sure the leisurely feeling would go away, as they only had two lanes open at the time. A gentleman got in line behind me, merely noted (did not complain) about the few checkout lanes, and went on to praise the Lord that the heat had finally calmed down a bit. As our conversation faded, they opened a new line, unbeknownst to me (honestly, I was too busy squinting at the cover of US Weekly a few feet in front of me to notice). The gentleman behind me made his way to the new line, asked the check girl to hold on a minute, then touched me gently on the elbow to let me know another line had opened, saying "Come on, friend." For real, he called me friend. Then, HE LET ME GO IN FRONT OF HIM. I even had like a million more things in my cart than him, and he still let me cut in front.

After thanking him for the tenth time, I headed out to the parking lot where I saw what one could call the icing on the cake. A young Kroger employee was pushing an ungodly number of carts back into the store, but trailing behind him was some random guy helping him load in a few carts that the employee couldn't fit in his row. The guy didn't even work there and was helping him out. It made me really happy.

Moral of the story, go to Kroger, let people cut in front of you, and when you see someone who needs a little help, give it to them. And call them "Friend" when you do it.