Connection

Had an interesting day today at an electronic gadget store today. I went there to buy a wireless router for two summer students today, because what I had lent them turned out to be broken. After I picked the router I wanted to buy, I went to the DVD section to browse. While I was checking out some DVD, I saw a middle-aged man sneak two children’s DVDs in his pants. He saw me looking at him and he started to go to a different section. I followed him and asked him what he was doing. He told me to f*ck off and to mind my own business. I asked him if he was stealing it for his kids. Turns out he’s got a daughter who is having a birthday tomorrow. I said that it would be a sucky birthday and a mother’s day if he got caught. The comment turned out to be a classic foot-in-mouth as it turns out, his wife was deceased, and the daughter lives with his parents. I apologized, and I told him to give me the DVD’s. I went to the cash register, paid for my stuff and his DVDs. I got him a gift receipt in case the DVDs needed to be replaced. He thanked me, I said it’s nothing, and we went our separate ways.

I’ve wondered this entire afternoon why I did it. It was certainly not out of pity, and I was certainly not patronizing the man. I still don't know, but a bonus is that the father will not to disappoint his daughter on her day. Birthdays are one of the things we remember in detail from our childhood, and any good parent would not want to fall short of his/her promise or the kid’s expectation. So tomorrow the father becomes a hero in his daughter’s eyes, and he fulfills his promise to her; a win-win situation. I guess that makes the reason irrelevant. And I liked the connection that I made today. I'll likely not see the man again, but I hope that in the distant future, he remembers today. I certainly will.