"Wild Wonderful Synchronicity"

It is extremely rare for me to buy bottled water.  But I have been particularly dehydrated lately.  Today, I bought Ethos brand bottled water from Starbucks.  Five cents from every purchase goes toward providing clean water to Ethiopians.

I leave Starbucks and board the bus.  Sitting across from me are 2 Ethiopians and one has his uniform on from the Olympics.

They verified that they are Ethiopian , she lives in Mountain Town, and he the cousin comes  to Mountain Town to train.

They are Olympic runners who ran in the last Olympics in England!  I told them the crazy story about the water I just bought!  ;)

"Customer Dis-service/retail hell"

Today has been full of incidences that i am sure u will enjoy hearing about.  Because of time constraints i will put just one today.

Manager at "convenience store" came up to me this a.m. when i was having my coffee he said:

"can you do me a favor"

"yes" i said

"every time you come in here you leave things behind"

(i always throw out my trash!)

me-"are u sure it's me"

him-"yes!"  "It's not a big deal or anything but you leave a sugar pack or something like that"

(being a good little doobie i pull my social work skills out of my hat)

me-"and every little bit helps!"

him-"yes!  thank you"

(the workers at this store treat folks from the shelter differently, and they know i used to stay at the shelter, nonetheless, i feel i have earned their respect!)

I tell this anecdote to the barista at starbucks who is absolutely lovely.  I tell her that "if starbuckschased down every customer who ever left something on the table, starbucs would have zero customers!  She laughed and thought the whole thing was ludicrous!