Doing Good Is Feeling Good

A couple of weeks ago, I went on our annual “mother-daughter-shopping-spree” with my mother. I am unemployed and she is retired, so we mostly looked. I came home with coffee  – how is that for sexy shopping??!!

In the high end of town, she fell absolutely in love with a pair of shoes. They were 60 % off but still insanely expensive. We left the store and she left her heart in that store, in the box with the shoes.

The thought of them shoes haunted me. My mother is almost 70. Now, I’ve reached the ripe age, where I watch my friends loose their mothers. And from what I can tell, it ain’t no picknick to loose a mother. Who knows how long I’ll get to have her? Didn’t she kiss all my boo-boos? Didn’t she babysit my kids everytime I asked? Isn’t she (the most critical yet) loving of all?

So I went back and looked for the shoes. The sale was over. The shoes were gone. I asked the young girl behind the fancy-pants counter about them. She went looking. She didn’t find them.

The older sales lady came. She remembered me and my mother and the shoes. (“Yes, I remember, I thought it was so silly she didn’t get them when she liked them so much!” My reply: “Well, they did cost a week’s salary!”)

She went and looked. And looked. And found the last pair. In the right size. Now they weren’t on sale – no 60 per cent off, now they were astronomically expensive. She asked: “Did your mother change her mind?”

I said:“No, and I am unemployed and these shoes are too expensive for me but I figure why not spend money I don’t have on people I love, while I have them? Who knows how long I have a mother?”  Now with a lump in my throat.

Tears welled up in her eyes and she said: “I’ll give you 50 per cent off!”

Did I mention, that the shoes were  really were expensive? All my good intentions were halted a bit by the now 10 percent difference between what I had expected to pay and what she was now – kindly – charging.

“Oh, we should have bought them that day”, I hesitated.

Over her Prada reading-glasses, she looked sternly at me. On the register she typed the 60 % off price. “Ok!”, she said (meaning “What the fuck – it is for a good cause!”)

So off I went with hole in my allowance and a heart brimming with joy – and one pair of really fancy shoes.

And I gave my mom the shoes with a warning that for Christmas, she would get something I had made out of macaroni –  and she gushed and cried and called me crazy  and cried and strutted around and cried.

“I feel like a Princess”, she said.

Now, when one does a good thing, one shouldn’t brag about it. Good deeds should just be done in the quiet. – So I hope you don’t think I am bragging!

And I know you know this but sometimes we forget. I am only telling you this to lovingly remind you how wonderful it feels to give an unexpected gift. To make someone feel like a princess. (Even if he IS a 300 pound construction worker!)

Serving an unasked for cup of coffee to a colleague, baking an extra cupcake and giving it to the old lady next door, getting you husband or boyfriend that lame-ass CD he wanted – it doesn’t have to be a lot but a little extra and unexpected kindness goes a long way.

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Thanks for reading.