The Little Things Matter
It was a small thing. It was so small that it shouldn’t have made me angry but it did. It happened in a Wal-Mart parking lot. I stopped my car to let a pedestrian pass in front of me. It was not in the area designated for passing pedestrians. Even so, it was the right thing to do. The pedestrian was a lady who appeared to be much younger than I. As she crossed she did not acknowledge me. She did not smile. She did not give a small wave to say thank you. She gave no response whatsoever. That didn’t bother me in particular. I do acts of kindness not for the appreciation and thanks but rather because it is simply the right thing to do. What angered me was the pace in which she walked in front of me. To say she was slow is to say that there are palm trees in Miami. To a paraphrase the great baseball manager Tommy Lasorda, she was so slow that had she been in a race with a pregnant woman she would have finished in third place. Not only was s