A Small Act in Aisle Seven
It happened on an ordinary afternoon, the kind of day where you rush into the grocery store with a mental list, two restless kids, and the hope that no one melts down before checkout. I was unloading fruit snacks and cereal onto the belt when I heard that unmistakable metallic clatter behind me. My boys had discovered The Claw machine.
Any parent knows that sound: the music, the flashing lights, the slow mechanical arm promising miracles and delivering almost none. Usually it ends with disappointment or a last-minute plea for “just one dollar, Mom, please.”
So when I glanced over and saw Zander actually playing, and then actually winning a toy, my brain froze. My first thought was not pride, but confusion. Where did he get the money? I had not given them any. I had not even been asked, which was an even bigger shock.
Zander came running toward me, cheeks flushed, eyes glowing, a small stuffed animal clutched triumphantly in his hands.
“Mom! Look! I won! I won!”
Before I could question him, he blurted out the part that made my heart pause.
“This nice teenager put money in the machine for me!”
I turned to see who he meant. At first I noticed the store’s familiar green uniform, the name badge, the easy slouch of someone on a quick break. The young man, Lamont, stood quietly near the machine, hands in his pockets, watching my boys with a soft, almost shy smile. There was no expectation on his face, no desire for recognition. Just the simple contentment of someone happy to make a child’s day.
I walked over, the boys bouncing behind me.
“You did this?” I asked gently.
He shrugged, glancing down as if embarrassed by the attention. “They were looking at it, and… I don’t know. I just figured it might make them smile.”
His voice was quiet, but kind. There was something unmistakably sincere about him. No angle, no need to impress. Just a good-hearted teenager on his break deciding to brighten a moment for two kids he did not know.
We thanked him, probably too many times. But in that moment, it did not feel like enough. So I did something most managers rarely hear. I called his manager to share a good story for once.
When I told her what Lamont had done, she paused, then let out a breath that carried both pride and relief. “He’s one of the good ones,” she said. And she sounded like she truly meant it.
Maybe that is why this small moment stayed with me long after we left the store. The world can feel heavy lately. Angry headlines, frayed tempers, the weight of uncertainty pressing on even the simplest days. Sometimes it feels like kindness is disappearing around the edges.
But then a young man like Lamont, barely older than the children he helped, quietly steps forward and reminds you:
There are still really good people in this world.
People willing to give without being asked. People who see a small chance to make someone smile and take it.
As a mom, those moments matter. They tell my boys that goodness is real. That strangers can be kind. That the world, despite everything, still holds gentle surprises tucked between produce aisles and checkout counters.
And maybe that is the most beautiful part.
Lamont probably thought he was giving my son a chance at a stuffed toy. But what he really gave was something far more lasting: a lesson in kindness, wrapped in the actions of a young man who chose to make the world a little softer for a child he did not know.
Submitted by: Jaclyn Schaeffer
