And it totally made me cry. I had just gotten my daughter a happy meal at McDonalds but I only had $5 and I was hungry too, so I decided to stop by one of these organic grocery stores (not nearly as expensive as Whole Foods but kinda similar to it). I got myself and my husband one of their to go meals that are cold and you heat up in the microwave and a fresh squeezed orange juice to share. I get up to pay and the lady says their machine is having issues and won't accept debit cards and will only process them as credit cards. I was paying with my EBT card (food stamps) and didn't figure I'd have an issue. Well, it wouldn't take it. She turns around and loudly asks her manager what to do if it's a food stamps card, then turns back around to say sorry, it just won't work right now. Kind of embarrassed, I told her that was my only method of payment, she apologized again and I had to leave my food and walk away. My daughter started protesting as we were walking away cause she wanted some orange juice, we parked her little cart and as I started to walk out the door this young kid, probably about 12, runs up and says, "ma'am, don't go, we're paying for your stuff". I look back through the window and his mom is waving at me to come back in. I was so shocked. I went back and got my bag from her and thanked her, trying my best to fight back my tears. She just said "it's ok" and gave me this look like "it's not a big deal, you deserve this". It was legitimately one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me and I cried the whole way home (I kinda cry a lot). I've heard of people doing these kinds of things all the time, the pay it forward thing where you pay for the coffee for the person behind you in Starbucks, but no one has ever done it for me and honestly, I never have enough money to do it for anyone else. I wish I could find her and tell her how much that meant to me. My husband and I are both incredibly stressed financially and emotionally and she just took the world off my shoulders tonight when she did that.
