A couple of weeks ago, my friend Katy gave me a soon - to - expire Aldi coupon for $10 off. She wasn't planning to shop there any time soon so, knowing that I was, she passed the savings on to me. Gerry and I stopped by the store on the last day of the sale, piled our cart high, and got in line. Unfortunately right at that moment, the line seemed to grow unusually long right in front of everyone's eyes.
Not to worry. After only a minute or two of waiting, another lane opened up, and the cashier waved us over to be first in line. As we started to unload our basket, we couldn't help noticing that the man right behind us was holding only a couple of items, and delicious ones at that -- a big box of chocolates and a big container of cashews. Well, naturally, we had to let the candy and nut guy go ahead of us, since we had more like fifty or a hundred items. Despite this tiny delay, even our big order was soon processed, and we were halfway through bagging our purchases when it suddenly occurred to me: I forgot to use the coupon! Dang it!
I asked the cashier, who by now was working with the next customer, if it was too late. "No, not too late." However, it would require some awkward refunding and paperwork. Gerry and I instantly came to the same conclusion -- it wasn't worth holding up the line for everyone else on such a busy day. Instead we glanced around and handed off the coupon to some students who said they'd be happy to use it. Okay, that was almost as good as using it ourselves. At least someone would reap the $10 value.
Next thing we knew, just as we were ready to go, the cashier reached out to us, "Here's your $10."
"Oh, but we gave our coupon away."
"No problem!"
So there you have it, a few quick and easy ways to pay it forward:
1. give away $10 store coupons to friends or strangers
2. let people with small orders move ahead of you in line
3. stop by Aldi to buy a fun, seasonal doormat (featured above)
4. You never know -- someone may just hand you $10! But if not -- and here's the moral of the story -- you'll still feel good about paying it forward!
A couple more grocery store anecdotes
of unexpected good deeds.
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