There’s almost nothing good about Daylight savings time. Now that we’ve changed the clocks back (fall back…), I wake up — mind you, at an ungodly early hour — and it’s light out. Yeah, who cares? I’m cooking dinner by the light of the moon and craving foods with vitamin D. How can that be right?
You know what else? I’m hungry. Sure, it made sense that on Sunday we ate dinner at 4:45, since our bodies technically still believed it was almost six o’clock. Yes, you read that right. I might as well start cultivating the white hairs upon my head, because we could have taken advantage of the senior citizen early bird specials that night. But yesterday it was Tuesday, so you’d think my body would have somewhat adjusted.
No dice.
The four-year-old and I went to Trader Joe’s Tuesday morning to pick up a small refrigerator’s worth of groceries, and as soon as we walked in the door, I was overcome with intense hunger pangs. We’re talking “OMG, I must have skipped lunch, I think I might pass out” hunger. Since I’m not fasting (dude, who does that?), I couldn’t explain it, other than the fact that it must have been very close to lunchtime. I checked my watch: ten o’clock.
Now that’s just embarrassing, but as my stomach growled through the almond butter and jelly aisle, I knew something had to be done. That’s when He approached.
I was engrossed with deciding between the curry simmer sauce or the Thai green curry sauce (Thai won this week), when I heard an amiable, “Hello!” right behind me. I turned to see the happiest man alive. Well, I assume he was anyway, because he was holding an open bag of dark chocolate-covered pretzels. And he was offering them to me. For a moment, I thought I might be the happiest person alive, but then I looked at the smiling face in the seat of the shopping cart (yes, I know he’s too big for the cart … don’t judge me) and my smile faded proportionately.
As I wiped the drool from my chin, I explained to Him that Owen was allergic to wheat and that I couldn’t in good conscious eat chocolate-covered pretzels in front of him. While I waited for my mom-of-the-year award, I got something better. He returned with an open bag of Snap Pea Crisps, because He didn’t want Owen to not be able to get a sample of something just because he had a food allergy. And he gave us a nice big handful to share.
With that small act of kindness and mercy, my hunger monster was stopped dead in its tracks and my hope and faith in the kindness of humanity was restored. Yes, Daylight savings time still sucks, but I’m a little less hungry now, thanks to the kindness of a stranger.
Clacked by Debbie McDuffee
on Nov 04, 2009 @ 12:00 EST5EDT
