Smiling at Life -- Target Checkout Line

On New Year's Day, I went shopping for cat food (canned), bird food (bagged), and single-guy food (frozen) at Target, the large department chain.

The store was relatively empty, compared to the previous 30-45 days, which must have been horrible on the workers. Rush, rush, rush.

Today, there were carts of returns in almost every aisle. During the Thanksgiving/Christmas rush, most stores do not have enough time to restock returned items. They pile up in the back until things slow down. This was the first of many days of sorting through items and putting them back on shelves.

But the store wasn't all that busy. At least, it didn't seem to be until I hit the checkout lines. There was only three registers open when I got in line. It wasn't enough. Apparently, everybody in the store decided to check out in the same ten-minute stretch.

By the time I made it to the front of the line, an additional four registers had opened up, but with the addition of more shoppers, the lines remained long.

Target is one of those stores that has double rows of registers. This particular store probably had twenty registers in total. They put ten registers across, and then another ten behind them. It isn't easy to get to the registers in the back. You have to navigate around shopping carts and crowds of people.

I was at one of those registers in the back. Although the rest of the clerks had full lines, I was the last person in mine because other people and their carts were blocking access.

As soon as the clerk finished with me, she called to the floorwalker. "See the man struggling with the big TV? Tell him he is my next customer. Have him come down the aisle at the end."

I could feel that big ol' smile coming upon me. She didn't have to do that. She gets paid by the hour. She could have just yelled "Next" or simply sat there cooling her heels until somebody fought through the crowd. If I was in her place, I would have been sick of customers after the holiday rush. But she wasn't. She was still looking out for the rest of us.

What she did may not seem like a lot to some of you, but her actions makes me proud to be a human being.

Hooray for her. Hooray for Target. Hooray for humanity.

This New Year promises to be better than the last. That wonderful clerk started us off right. Let's build on her example, and spread the smiles.

Mr. Rheaman writes on a variety of subjects for numerous sites and blogs. Among them is Get Blog Ideas.