When I first began writing I used to walk through my days looking for stories. It was as though I had huge satellites on the sides of my head. And for whatever reason I would always find wonderful story gems at the grocery store. I attribute this common occurrence to the fact that no where else can you go where you encounter lots individuals at various stages of life, with vastly differing daily routines, while commonly performing a life sustaining task, feeding ourselves. We all have to do it. And we all have to do it at the grocery store. Well, most of us do anyway. Hale to the home gardener.

When we walk through life looking for a story we are far more open to experiences than otherwise. When I go to the grocery store I not only look for the food on my shopping list, I look for storytelling threads. I patiently shop and wait until the story idea sparks my heart and imagination. Then I run home and wait and wait some more until the kids go to bed and I can write about my discoveries in peace.

At one time in my life I did an experiment on the word GRACE. I spoke out loud into the open air, “I want to see the word GRACE, hear the word GRACE, and experience what other GRACE like things I can experience.” As it turned out the word “grace” was on street signs, in books, and uttered across the lips of people walking past. It was everywhere. The prevalence of the word Grace can easily be equated to taking a microscope and looking at human skin and suddenly realizing, “oh my, I’m completely covered in microorganisms” except with grace you maybe don’t want to crawl out of your skin as much.

Fascinated with my findings I took this experiment one step further.

One year, on earth day, my sister and I packed up our children to clean up trash along a beautiful bypass in the White Mountains. My sister had three of her children and I had my one child. Our children were all under 10 years old with one of them being no greater than 1 years old. We brought the kid carrier for my sisters baby. We got her all strapped in, what a job, and finally loaded on my sisters back to begin our earth day clean up. Once we were all packed up and ready to go we looked at each other and said, “Okay, who brought the bag?” We remembered everything from food and water to the kids backpack. We forgot the one item we needed to complete our earth day trash collecting mission. The bag.

But wait.

Testing my theory about grace I said to the group, “hold on, I’ll be right back. I’m going to hike up a little ways and get us a bag.” My sister humorously replied, “ha ha, okay.” As I began my solo walk I quietly yet again out loud said, “I need a bag. Bag where are you? Show yourself bag.” And not more than 200 yards up this road, sitting in a perfect upright position was a brown paper bag. This bag wasn’t blown into a ditch. It wasn’t wet, stepped on, and filled with anything. It was perfectly brand new and it sat right on the side of the road as though it were waiting for me. In both disbelief and belief I scooped up the bag and walked down to my family where they looked and me and this bag in amazement. Grace. I can’t make this up.

Back to the grocery store.

Much like this story of grace, grocery store stories are similar for me. I stay open to the possibilities of stories as I shop. Call it free entertainment, I call it sheer delight. My latest grocery store experience goes something like this. And yes, this is another one of those, try it and you’ll see moments.

After shopping for my groceries I went up to the register to pay. A solo woman in front of me bought similar items as I did, vegetables, some proteins, and a few carbohydrates. I thought she and I could be friends. Then she asked for her items to be bagged in paper, not plastic. Then I thought about earth day and wondered if someone cleaning up a road side somewhere would someday find her bag and be the happiest person ever. It could happen.

When my food was being scanned I recognized the young woman behind the register was high school age. She had braces, pimples, and a teenage awkwardness about her. She said the traditional “hello, how are today? Did you find everything you were looking for?” I said, “Yes”, and thought, of course I did, this is America. I found an abundance. More than enough.

That classic customer service exchange went as expected. The person makes small talk, smiles politely, while acting mildly amused slips in “if you open a line of credit you can save 10%, are you interested?” Or here’s a good one, “with your email address I can offer you discounts and coupons.” Nice try. No thank you.

After the smiles, small talk, and scanning of my groceries the young woman behind the register said something that took me by surprise. She said a word so regular, so common, and so normal that I had to question my reality for a moment. I had to shake my head and simultaneously make that noise cartoon characters make when they take a double take. It can’t be. Is this truly a word so rarely used in this type of situation that I can’t believe my ears?

She said, “PLEASE.”

Where you hoping for something more than that?

As I walked out of the grocery store I thought about going back in to thank her for saying “please” after telling me the total of my purchase. That simple word made me feel really good inside. I can’t explain it. It was so obviously out of the ordinary I wanted to call her parents and tell them they raised a polite young lady. She had the sense to know that even though I wanted to purchase those items and she currently held for ransom that she still needed to say “please.”

“$130.42 please”. Who would have thought something so simple could have such an affect. I went straight home and told my husband what remarkable thing happened. He cocked his head off to the side and looked at me like I had seven heads and moved on to talk to me about running. Like it was no big whoop. Because it isn’t. At least it shouldn’t be. But it is.

I tried my “grace” experiment out on this new fandango word “please.” Over the next several days and at various stores I turned on my satellite storytelling ears listening for the word “please.” What a disappointing endeavor. Low and behold, not one please came out of the mouths of any cashiers. How odd. It’s as though in the interview process with these employees the manager said, “you’re hired but remember, because we have what the customer wants you are not to say “please” when asking for their money.”

The crazy thing about this word is over time, with its lack of use, you will forget to expect it or even listen for it for that matter. The word is becoming obsolete. I have limited of research here but what I do know is on this one day at the grocery store the young woman who rang up my groceries said to me, “one hundred and three dollars and forty two cents PLEASE” and I took note.

I encourage you to venture out into this wide and please-less world. First do something nice for yourself and listen for the word grace. You’ll be amazed at how often you see it, hear it, and experience it. I dare you. Remember the road side brown paper bag that you might need someday. Second, go out and listen for the word please. Report back to me on your findings. Perhaps I’m living in a please void. In a vortex where the word please gets sucked away before it can be used. I bet one night while we were all sleeping a dust storm swept through and stole our pleases and it will circle back and dump them all out again. The word will return as microorganisms all over the place and we’ll never be able to see it or hear it again. Or maybe that already happened.

The next time you are out, put on your storytelling satellites and listen up. You might just be pleasantly surprised by what you hear. Try not to judge it. Simply note it and run to your devices with your findings and message me. You might find yourself living in a grace filled please void waiting for the next dust storm to blow manners into your area. It could happen. And I want to know about it.