As we are officially in the holiday season, I’m reflecting on the human sociology of it all. It’s a very interesting time if you can take a step back and look at it. Businesses known for their “adultness” of deadlines and bottom lines are filling their lobbies with large triangle-shaped trees, empty boxes wrapped in obscenely bright paper, and decorations based on a mythical night-visitor bearing gifts and his hoards of elfin minions. During the next month, it’s absolutely appropriate – socially acceptable even – to walk around wearing a red pointed felt hat with a white pompom flopping around on top, or a hideous sweater that blinks or jingles when you move. You can even use a government service to mail a letter to a mythical address!
I absolutely love it! It’s like we all get a pass to let our inner children out to play in public display.
An experience usually glimpsed during solo shower concerts or giggly interactions with actual children, or if you’re lucky enough to have friends who put things together like grown-up hide and seek or city-wide scavenger hunts. Or… if you’re in theatre. Then you basically never put your inner child away. I’m so lucky to have such friends. My friend Ian and I relish the ugly sweater opportunity.
We even have matching ones, and have been known to wear them on the same day:
Also… for the record… I absolutely believe in Santa Claus. I believe there’s a realm of magic that exists either brought to life by the collective belief of millions of young human minds, or we as a species have a slight memory of something already very real and we allow it to permeate this realm of existence. Either way. An entity representing the best of human hearts is very present during this time of the year. So watch your Karma, bitches. This brings me to the point of today’s post…
Why, during this magical mystical time, when we are listening to holiday music, watching our favorite movies, eating so much pumpkin pie we want to barf, is it so easy to be a jerk!? We should be high on life!
Once upon a retail time, I was that jerk. And then, a slice of pizza changed my life.
Working in retail during the holidays is a special form of hell. Working at a Macy’s in the Junior’s Department during Black Friday and all the days leading up to Christmas is reserved for people who did something really bad in a past life. Enter: me. Not only was it a Macy’s, and not only was it the holidays, but it was a brand new Macy’s in a brand new mall that had JUST OPENED. They literally bused in the employees from a remote parking lot, because the gigantic lot on property was full by noon every day. That is the reality we were all living in. It was a different time. Amazon Prime was not a thing. Millenials, count your tight-jeans blessings.
So, on one particularly bleak 12-hour shift, I was taking my obligatory 15 minute break. (They enforced those during the 12-hour shifts so that we wouldn’t collapse onto a paying customer and ruin their chances of opening a Macy’s card.) I was racing to the food court with aching feet to grab a quick slice of pizza. My real lunch break was hours away and I was starving. Sbarros = a beacon of light for all mall workers. Fast, filling, greasy. Perfect.
Great! No line! I think to myself as I approach the counter, smelling the pepperoni and bubbling cheese. But I wasn’t fast enough. A man and his young son wandered to the counter seconds before I could reach the glass. He bends over and starts pointing out the variety of slices from which his child can choose. So many exciting options, right Johnny? Well lets see, there’s cheese, pepperoni, a vegetable option, oh of course calzones, what about a sausage, or maybe one of their pastas. They have ziti, spaghetti with meatba — For the love of God and Christmas! Make up your damn minds!
Being the classy, non-jaded, twenty-something I was, I sighed loudly and looked at my watch. The father looked up at me and smiled. Our conversation is below, with my dialogue in red, because it’s the color of the devil.
Oh, do you work here in the mall? I had my nametag on.
Yep. I’m on my break. I pause before adding sharply: I only get 15 minutes.
Oh, I see. He says pleasantly. He turns back to his son to finalize their cheese-filled choices. Then he heads down to the Sbarro clerk, orders his son’s pizza, his pizza, their drinks and then says:
And whatever she’s having.
I think I may have staggered backwards. Oh no, that’s okay. You don’t have to do that. I’m sure my face was a mix of shock and surprise from his response, and also the human kindness I hadn’t seen in any mall guest since 6am that morning.
I’d like to, you’re working hard. He handed his card to the clerk.
Uh… well… I’ll have a slice of pepperoni I stammered. I wanted a soda but couldn’t bring myself to have him pay for that too. So I said that would be all I wanted. I thanked him as he and his son walked away. And as I sat in the food court inhaling my slice, I couldn’t have felt more ashamed of myself. That man just killed me with kindness. And he really did change me with that slice of pizza.
I went back to my shift with a renewed sense of kindness in my heart. So maybe these shoppers were being rude to me. But maybe I was bringing out their rudeness, too. And who knows what they’re going through? Maybe they’re rushing to get a gift for their son they haven’t seen in 2 years because he was in the military. Maybe they are thinking that this might be their last holiday with their father or mother. Maybe they just lost a child. Or maybe some mall employee was just really rude to them for no reason and it hurt their feelings. All these things are true realities every day. Everyone has a story. Not just you. Not just me.
And that is what this man, his son, and that $3 slice of pizza taught me. It reminded me to get out of my own head and realize I am not the only one in this situation being affected by the actions of other people. I became the one affecting people. And then he showed me a simple act of kindness. He reminded me we are all human. He brought me to my knees with that one statement “and whatever she’s having.”
I probably will never have that kind of pizza again. I went on a break to get some food, and I came back with a changed perspective of reality. So thank you, stranger. I remember you often and what you did.
This holiday season when someone takes your parking space that you clearly were waiting for, when someone cuts you in line, when a sales clerk is rude to you or someone is just taking to damn long to make up their mind at the counter… buy them a slice of proverbial pizza. You know what I mean. Smile, wave kindly, offer them encouragement. You might just change their world.
Peace on Earth is up to our every day interactions with one another.
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Blessed Solstice.
Beautiful, thank you!