6/10/24

BLAME THE NICE PEOPLE:
HOW ONE SATURDAY AT THE SUPERMARKET STARTED OUT  SOUR BUT ENDED UP SWEET

THIS IS A SMALL STORY about a big moment, the kind you rarely hear about, because  when nice people do their thing, it usually isn't news.
     The day started wretchedly for my wife and me, with a routine round of Saturday errands. At home, we discovered that  a “fob”  had disappeared.
      The "fob," one of those little weird things that make today’s complicated cars unlock, lock, start and turn off,  and roll down all four windows, had been on a key ring along with another "fob," which operated a second car, the one used on the shopping trip, which explains why the furtive "fob" wasn't missed right away.
     Glumly, we embarked on a probably hopeless mission,  reverse-engineering the shopping run, going from one parking lot to another, walking up and down empty spaces, getting down on hands and knees to look under cars, the way they search for hidden bombs in movies.
     At the Stop & Shop supermarket on West Main Road in Middletown, I spotted a young man wearing a yellow safety vest and  racing around the parking lot to corral stray shopping carts. He was  hard to slow down  – but  stopped a millisecond to say, no, he hadn’t seen any"fob," then sprinted back to his urgent duties.
     Dispirited, we went into the store, to the customer service booth.
     It was empty.
     A young woman in a Stop & Shop smock was standing in front of an aisle. Could we find someone in customer service? "We lost one of those “fob” thingies that unlock cars and gets them started, blah, blah, blah."
     She brightened.
     “I remember seeing something like that,” she said.
     We were near the checkout area, and she rushed to one of the workers, whom she thought might have more information.
     Meanwhile, one of those robots that troll supermarket aisles appeared.  It had a pair of  big fake eyes, maybe to make it  seem human or at least amusing. Instinctively, I suspected that the robot didn't give a fig about a "fob."
     The young woman found yet another co-worker, who also knew something about a furtive “fob” and its travels.
     Excitement was building. And not just on our part. It seemed like the group of workers were just as enthusiastic. A cashier, overhearing the conversation, joined in:  “Those things are REALLY expensive.”
    Everyone seemed united in a common purpose. The invisible wall between company “associates” and price-obsessed “customers” evaporated, as if we were all committed to a noble cause.
      The Stop & Shop woman, who was leading the hunt, darted into the customer service booth, rummaged around a counter and triumphantly held up what for all the world looked like a genuine  “fob.”
      She handed it over.

 STOP & SHOP RETURNED to business as usual.
     Cashiers scanned the barcodes of cabbages, loaves of bread, avocados  and emergency Klondike bars; baggers bagged. Over at self-service, the amateurs continued working for free.  The robot had disappeared.  Out in the parking lot, the carriage wrangler  continued his roundup.
     The moment of truth had arrived.
     We walked toward our car, the one that  went with the wandering “fob," which we had driven on our  Search-&-Rescue Operation,  using the "fob's" spare twin.
     Clutching the rescued "fob," I pressed the “open” button.
     The car chirped.  Welcome.
     
THINGS DID NOT not have to end this way.
    Consider the Stop & Shop person who actually found the “fob.” (Your professionally trained, career journalist never did learn the Who, the Where and  the How  of the “fob's”  actual discovery).
      The finder surely could have ignored the thing.  Kicked it under a counter.  Left it for the sweepers. Not my job. 
     The young woman who led the hunt could have brushed us off with a “Wait (forever) for the manager” command and walked away. Not my job.
      The people at the checkout could have ignored us, as they scanned barcodes and bagged groceries and counted the seconds until their next break. Not our job.
     The amateurs at self-service surely wouldn't have noticed a tiny “fob” lying at their feet as they hurried to scan, to bag and to get the hell out of Dodge. Not their jobs.
     As for the robot, I imagined that it could have handed us over to security. Or made a cyber note to keep a fake eye out for any more non-shopping "customers,"  slowing the pace of human “associates.” Maybe it had messaged Control, asking, “What’s a ‘fob?' " only to be rebuked by Control:  NOT  YOUR JOB.
     Instead, nice people understood that a couple of elderly  "neighbors" had been set upon by one of those those awful, everyday injustices,  the kind that  can happen to anyone, turning any spring day sour.
     The  community knew that some of those injustices extract a hefty price,  as one of the checkout ladies had warned. Indeed, we learned later that  replacing a fugitive "fob" can set you back  $200 to $350.
      That's equal  to a week’s worth of groceries; a copay for a visit to  the emergency room that comes with a CT scan;  an overdue electric bill; an oxygen-deprived seat at a stadium.
      Finding the thing that is lost is  a universal good, part of the pursuit of happiness  promised by the Founders, and maybe something the Fathers could have written into the Bill of Rights.
      I'd like to think there are people who don't need a copy of the Constitution to do something nice. The people at Stop & Shop certainly didn't need  to consult the Ninth Amendment to do what they did last Saturday.
     Maybe, in these fraught, contentious times there many people who are just as nice.  Maybe there are enough of them so that all the things we're worried about these days will turn out okay.
     That really would be nice.