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Skip and I enjoy taking the piss out of each other, which is often what happens when you’ve known a friend for a decade and a half. And so my main comment after a touching FaceBook post he wrote was focused on the one line that struck me most out of the whole thing. Since it deserves more eyes on it, and because the sentiment is real, I’m going to post it here, with the simple proviso that I’ve been shopping with Skip a number of times, in a wide-ranging assortment of places – from Macy’s to Muji, from Wal-Mart to Sephora, from Trader Joe’s to Shreve, Crump & Low ~ and I can emphatically affirm there was nothing Canadian or bobsled about any of it. On with his post:

Does anyone else have a favorite cashier at the supermarket? The kind that you don’t mind waiting in a slightly longer line for? I do. I couldn’t tell you her name but she’s a black girl in maybe her mid-thirties. She’s always bright and chipper, never rings anything up incorrectly, offers me a coupon if I don’t happen to have one that pertains to something I’ve bought, and she’s always happy to chat with me. Last week we talked about Hall and Oates. We share part of each other’s Friday mornings every week. This week she looked and me and said “I can’t believe Alex is gone.” I looked at her puzzled and said “Alex?” To which she replied “Trebek.” I told her I was sad as well, how I recently tried out for Jeopardy and how much that show has meant to me over the years. We continued chatting as she rang and I bagged. Eventually we had come upon the fact that we both lost our grandmother’s over a decade ago. Grandmother’s that we both recalled enjoying watching Alex Trebek and Jepoardy with. We finished up and both wished each other a great weekend as we always do. As I rode my cart back to my car like a Canadian Bobsledder a thought occurred to me… what a small intimate memory we had in common. I think that’s true of everyone. We are all on this planet for a short few trips around the Sun. And while we each have our own unique stories, we also have so many similarities. These past few weeks we have been bombarded by the media about how much we differ. In thoughts. In feelings. In values. But it was nice to be reminded that as people, as a species, as human beings, we also share so many things in common. We could all do with a reminder and take care in how we deal with one another. We are more alike than we are different.