upg: hermes the friendly stranger, and hermes the familiar stranger
the Friendly Stranger, and the Familiar Stranger, are epithets i have given to hermes based mostly on my experience as a cashier. it's not exclusive to cashiering, that's just where i found these epithets.
the friendly stranger is every nice customer who has ever brightened my day. he's every time i have ever tried to brighten a stranger's day. he reminds me that humanity is in the connection.
a man yells at me because i didn't know what food he was talking about, and comes back a few minutes after leaving to apologize for overreacting (he had his kid with him, and i'm sure he wanted to set a good example). an older woman tells me that she went bra shopping for the first time in many years, and she bought herself something fancy, and she pulled down her shirt to show me ! (it was clearly very rare for her to buy herself something nice, and she was joyful because of it !)
someone sees a penny on the floor, and goes to pick it up. "Aw, it's tails, it's not lucky." the one with them says "flip it over so it's lucky for someone else."
the familiar stranger is a regular. people that i don't know, but have rung up for years. a man who comes in almost every day, buys two busch tall boys, and pays with exact change. an old woman with a southern accent always has silly jokes, and i try to have one back for her.
two hours away, a woman comes up to me and asks "don't you work at [store]?" i could not have picked this woman out of a crowd, but she could pick me out of a crowd.
the familiar stranger is also recognizing yourself in a stranger. a man compliments my rainbow mask, and says "we're family, you're part of my family." almost a thousand miles from home, a woman gives me her phone number for her rewards points, and she has the same area code as me. on vacation, in maine, and every michigan license plate reads to me as kin of some kind.
