Cookie Kindness

Sometimes you have a crap day.  It happens to all of us.  Days when you are tired, cranky, and everyone is getting on your “last nerve”.  But sometimes, on the luckiest of those days, you meet someone like SALLY DUNNAWAY, and your attitudes shifts into GRATEFULNESS and HAPPINESS.

Yesterday I was having one of those days.  I had to get up super early.  I had a hard day at work.  I had a “to do” list that seemed to be 5 miles long.  It seemed like every single person I interacted with wanted/”needed”/expected me to solve their problems.  You know the kind of day I am talking about… 

It was 9:00 PM and we were out running errands.  We hadn’t even considered what we were going to make for dinner yet, let alone got around to cooking it.  We were checking out at Target when I heard this lovely question being asked from a woman behind me, “Would you like a cookie??”.

SAY WHAT??  I turned around to see Sally Dunnaway, a complete stranger, offering us Pepperidge Farm Mint Chocolate Milano cookies!!!  Ummm, you don’t have to ask me twice, Sally!  I’m in!!

SHE SHARED!!!!  Who could say no???

She had the nicest smile and was so kind to share.  I don’t think she knew what a hard day I had been having (I can’t remember complaining loudly while in line for her to over-hear, though I may have…).  But her simple gesture of opening a bag of cookies and offering them to us was SO APPRECIATED.  That one cookie (which turned into three cookies…) did so much to improve my attitude and my outlook!!

Here is Sally, the sweet, kind woman who turned my day around.  THANKS SALLY!

I told Sally a bit about the Kindness Activist Project and asked if I could write about her kindness.  She was a bit hesitant, saying that her actions were not 100% for the good of the people who she was sharing with, but also selfish in that if the cookies all got eaten she wouldn’t be tempted by them at home J.  It is so interesting – almost every time I ask someone if I can tell people about their kindness, they have some reason to negate their actions. “Oh, what I do isn’t really all that kind….”   “Welllll I do it for myself as much as I do it for others…” etc. etc. etc.  It reminds me of accepting compliments and how hard that is to do; to just listen to the compliment, accept it, and thank the person who gave it to you, without saying something that in effect diminishes it.

Sally, whatever the reason you offered us (and the cashier) those cookies, IT WAS KIND.  You made us smile.  You let us eat dessert first, which we loved.  You reminded us how easy it is to be kind to others. 

David rested and munched cookies in the closed Target Cafe
area while I ran back in and got an item I forgot.  :)

I gave her a Kindness Activist button and she pinned it on right then and there.  Sally, you are now an official Kindness Activist!  Thanks for making my day finish on a high (and tasty) note!!

Have you ever had someone do something kind like this to you?  If so, tell me about it!  Email me at kindnessactivist@gmail.com .  Get involved.  Be KIND.  J  #kindnessactivist