TOTAL READ TIME: 2.5 Minutes
“Excuse me, Miss!”
As I’m walking into my favorite strip mall store yesterday morning, I turn to this calling of a woman as she pulled her car to the curb. “Can you point me in the direction of the Comcast store? Is it in this strip mall or another one? I can’t seem to find my way.”
My heart lit up. My mind was racing. Is this really happening…an old-fashioned human interaction? How rare is this, to be stopped face to face looking in the eyes of a stranger? Not a “hello” passing along the sidewalk, not a bump-into at a community event, not being rushed at check-out. Rather, a traditional, “Can you help me?”
She must not have had her little 2.5 by 5-inch super computer with her. But you know what I think? Perhaps she did. Maybe she likes to play little games like I do. I think she had her phone lying on the seat next to her, but she wanted to have a little fun on her Saturday morning errand run: let me test humanity… do we remember how to do this?
They tell us our phones are for connection but rather they keep us apart. Why ask for a recommendation when you can browse Amazon reviews? Why ask for help when you can ask Siri for help? Why stop and ask a stranger to find the store, when you can hook up to that sky satellite?
This doesn’t happen very often, this old-fashioned eye-looking and help-seeking.
I grinned from ear to ear, and gladly helped her find her way. I could have told her the specific directions of this 4-minute drive (just a left at the light, then a right, down two lights and hang a right), but I spoke in the language of our past decades.
So, I looked her in her eyes, raised my hand, pointed due south. “You’re really close. Head that-a-way, and it’s in the building next to the movie theater.”
She grinned back at me, sighing that sigh of relief, saying “Oh, thank you SO much!”
Oh, thank YOU. Believe me, thank YOU.