Her hair, pulled up on top of her head with a clear straight line between her graying roots and the brown she’d dyed the rest of her ponytail, not only made her look more youthful than she was, but it was also the perkiest part of our interaction.
She had a kind face, but it contorted into a semi-frown as a looming manager watched her every move and barked out orders.
“Finish up with him first!” he demanded after she asked me for my loyalty card while the man ahead of me was fiddling with the chip reader and mashing buttons on the keypad.
I remembered all of the times I’d been the new person in training, stumbling along through my first few days as I charted unfamiliar territory that comes with every new job.
“There’s no way around it — being the new person is just no fun,” I said with a smile, in an attempt to redirect the way-too-frustrated manager’s attention while also taking sides with the novice cashier.
My ice breaker seemed to work, as the two employees engaged in small talk with me while the ponytailed cashier swept my groceries across the scanner. I immediately noticed that she had an accent from somewhere up north, but I couldn’t place from where. As a naturally and genuinely curious person, I had to ask.
Ponytailed cashier and grumpy manager both laughed when I mentioned that I heard an accent in her voice. They wanted me to guess where she was from. Oy.
“Boston?” I said skeptically.
More laughter.
“No! Not Boston. Michigan. A GM town. My husband is originally from Roan Mountain but retired from GM last year.”
The only thing I really know about Michigan is that those who hail from there like to make a mitten with their hand and point out where their hometown is.
No mitten from her though, so I took another guess: “Ah, like Detroit?”
“No…Flint.” she looked up from my food stuff to assess my face and whether I knew where Flint was.
“You know I get angry anytime I hear the word Flint,” I tossed back. “It’s really a shame what they’re doing up there with the water. After all this time, I can’t believe they haven’t fixed it!”
She stopped all the scanning, and the moment shifted. She no longer cared about the grumpy manager standing over her shoulder, and her face got serious as she lifted a hand to help direct the message she was about to share:
“I don’t care who you are or where you’re from, what you look like or how much money you have,” she said quickly, with believable conviction.
“Everybody’s somebody! And we all deserve fresh water.”
I nodded and affirmed her stance, completely in agreement with her belief. Those two words sum up basically everything I feel about politics, social issues, and current events: “Everybody’s somebody.”
And wow — what a world it would be if we all treated each other that way.
I wonder if the grumpy manager believes that everybody’s somebody. If not, I hope that soon, he will.