“Excuse me, but…

…has anyone turned in a chicken?” “A chicken?” “Yeah, a roast chicken.”

That’s how my brief encounter with the Safeway checkout clerk began. Little did I know that a silly question like that would mark the beginning of an experience that would stir in me a renewed hope for humanity.

Flashback to 90 minutes prior… After being turned away from our usual grocery destination, Albertsons – which, a bubbly aproned teenager revealed, was “like” closed until the weekend when it will reopen as a Lucky Store – I headed down the street to Safeway. I spent the next hour meandering through the less familiar aisles, taking longer than usual to find the items on my list and read the nutrition labels of the brands that were on sale. I was quite pleased to have, for the first time, brought enough canvas bags (thanks, Sweetie!) to contain everything that I bought. Well, almost everything. The roast chicken, which came in its own carrier, didn't need a bag. It claimed the shotgun seat on my cart while the bulging canvas bags rode beneath it to the car.

As I hummed to myself while emptying the bags onto the kitchen counter at home, I suddenly stopped and gasped, “Where's the chicken?!” I rewound the filmstrip of my most recent memory and grimaced – through an out-of-body experience – as I watched myself wheel the cart back to the rack outside Safeway and abandon the roast chicken, still nestled shotgun.

And then there I was, sheepishly asking the guy if he had seen my missing dinner. He unsuccessfully stifled a grin, then asked me to follow him to a rusty cart containing what looked like a neglected groceries graveyard. We poked around a large pile of hot dog buns, shampoo, and other random items. No chicken. I was thinking to myself, “well, I’ll get another one,…or we’ll go out for dinner…” when the clerk leaned in and said, “Why don’t you go to the deli, get another one, and come out through my line.” I stared at him, wide-eyed, and whispered slowly, “You’re going to give me another chicken?” He nodded benevolently.

I have no idea whether he was in a position of authority to do it -- he looked 15 -- but regardless, this simple gesture had me beaming as I left the store.