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7:45am | I had never heard of Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market before the chain — which is less than a half-decade old — opened a location here in Long Beach at Seventh Street and Nebraska Avenue.
I was willing to give them a try not only because this location was about 75 percent closer to my home than Trader Joe’s — my go-to for comestibles — but because food-wise their philosophy is similar. And in short order I was impressed enough by their good (if limited) offerings to become a regular shopper there.
I also formed a positive impression of the employees, from the green-shirted staff members to blue-suited security guards.
A recent experience has only furthered that feeling.
“Excuse me,” came the voice from behind me, with that volume level that inspires you to turn even if you don’t believe your ears are its intended targets.
But mine were, as the security guard had me in his sights. He was waving some sort of paper in his right hand, which made me think there must have been some confusion with my purchase.
It would not have been the first time. Once I had exited the store without having completed my transaction (having entered my PIN number at the wrong time or something). Plus, I had just made two purchases: first a few groceries, then back down the aisles because I had forgotten to get toilet paper. On top of that, the Green Things 100% Recycled Bath Tissue rang up at $2.99 instead of its $2.79 list price, so I had fetched an employee to correct the overcharge. All in all, ample possibility for some sort of confusion.
After the guard and I had taken a couple of steps toward each other, I saw that the paper he was waving was money. “You forgot this,” he said, referring to the $16 I had left in the machine.
It would have been easy for him to have kept the money. I rarely pay with cash when buying groceries, and my mind was on getting out of there and over to Portfolio, the grocery stop having taken about three times as long as I had intended. Since I had only one other dollar on me, I would have sorted things out pretty quickly when I tried to buy my coffee. There would have been that awful feeling when your absentminded loss registers, then the hassle of going back to fresh & easy — with the cash, of course, nowhere to be found, snatched by God knows whom in an act that couldn’t even properly be called “stealing.”
But that is not what transpired, because some young guy making not much more than minimum wage passed on easy money for doing the right thing.
This right thing was a small thing, the kind of thing we hope everyone will do. But as you well know, it doesn’t always go like that. And while it always seems more dramatic and captivating to talk about people behaving badly, that doesn’t mean we should overlook the simple good.
Life is comprised mostly of small things, is it not? So perhaps how we deal the tiny stuff, the little acts that no one will ever know about — such as whether we say “yes” or “no” to the bad behaviors we could engage in with impunity and easily justify to ourselves — says as much about our character as the big, obvious, capital-letter questions of Right and Wrong.
So, too, might the little links in a regional business chain make the measure of its quality as much as the tastiness of its chocolate bundt cake (No artificial preservatives, flavors or colors).
I’ve only experienced a little bit of Fresh & Easy, but it’s more than enough to keep me coming back.