During the COVID-19 pandemic, Lucus was at the pharmacy filling a prescription or two for me and browsing the soda aisle while he had to wait. Lucus was really diligently hunting around the store for the exact right brand at the exact right sales price. The way he tells it, he was pulling 12 packs off the shelves and peering in behind them so he could be absolutely, 100 percent sure that he got the soda he needed. And, lo and behold, he asked for more and he found more – 4 12 packs of just what he was looking for.
He got three of them into his cart when a woman came over exclaiming, “oh, he found [what I was looking for]”! Lucus soon found out that she had been asking the employees if they had run out or not and they hadn’t been able to find any to help her.
Without thinking, Lucus said, “oh, no worries! There’s four left – why don’t we split them?” And he bent down and put two of the twelve packs in her cart to spare her the pain of bending over.
When Lucus went on to pay, the store manager walked up to the register. He said, “[you know,] there haven’t been many people in here today who have been nice to each other.”
Lucus said, “in these times, we have to stick together – there’s no more important time than when things are difficult.” Now, I don’t mean to brag on Lucus or embarrass him by telling this story. But the manager was so touched by Lucus’s open-heartedness that he gave Lucus a fifteen percent discount. Lucus asked for more. First, for more soda because that’s what he thought that he wanted. Then, when a woman came to him in need – okay, not a life or death need – but it was a small thing to make her life a little bit better, a little easier to handle in that moment… When a woman came to him in need, he saw that more meant not that he would get all the soda himself, but that they could each share joy and community and connection with a simple gesture.