Front Porch: All this niceness has me over-thinking

I’m experiencing so many small gestures of courtesy and helpfulness these days, and especially in such times of unrest and uncertainty, these are pleasant and unexpected moments. Overthinker that I am, I’m also wondering, what’s up with that?

Let me tell you some of the things I’ve experienced in the past few weeks to show you what I mean.

I was coming out of Costco and about to unload items from the cart to the back of my car. A middle-age woman came over and asked if she could help me. Not the first time that’s happened. I had nothing particularly heavy (just bulky), and I declined, saying I had it under control. “Are you sure?” she asked. I politely said I was, thanking her again.

I’m not a martyr. I would have accepted the help if I had heavy items and hadn’t been able to find a Costco employee to help me. Still, I felt guilty at turning down the offer.

I was at a store in Cheney, placing a medium-sized bag and two furnace filters in the back seat, when I saw a man walking a goodly distance across the parking lot toward me. “Do you need help with that?” he asked.

I looked back at him rather quizzically. “With the furnace filters, I mean,” he continued. I didn’t know exactly what to say, so I said, “Well, they’re already in the car, so I’m good, thanks.”

He then went on to clarify further, that he meant was I able to install a filter when I got home. Again, I said I had it covered, but thanks just the same.

Now that one could have been a little creepy, but it didn’t feel like it. He just looked like a regular guy headed into the store. Decent haircut, kindly demeanor, not raggedy. Now, I realize that ax murderers don’t wear a “beware of murderer” T-shirt, but the whole interchange was more bewildering than ominous. I took it strangely but kindly.

Coming out of the doctor’s office on another day, I opened the door to the lobby and began walking toward the exterior door. A man just exiting the building stopped and held the door open for me. The lobby is a pretty decent size, so he’d have to be there longer than usual to accomplish his act of kindness – so I hurried my pace to get to the doorway and said thank you as I left the building.

Another morning, I came out of the grocery store, unloaded my few bags and was taking the cart back to the store. I was fairly close to the entry doors when I heard a male voice behind me ask if he could take it the rest of the way for me (I was maybe 10 steps from the door), and I said “sure” as I turned toward him.

I mean, there’s no reason to make people feel bad for trying to do a small kindness. I hold doors for people (the ones coming right behind me), too, and return shopping carts for others and even helped an older woman like myself navigate the parking lot ice to get into the store safely (the blind leading the blind).

So when I made the turn to hand off my cart, there was a man in his 30s pushing a stroller with a child aboard. He maneuvered the stroller with one hand and my cart with the other.

Boy, did I ever feel inadequate. Is my decrepitude that apparent?

My husband told me that at the businesses of two of his customers last week, two of the managers he’s known for quite a while greeted him with variations of, “Hello, young man.” Bruce, who is a man in his 80s, thought it was funny.

As previously stated, I’m prone to overthinking things, so I’ve been mulling about all this. But I have it now, courtesy of an 88-year-old friend of mine.

People really are kind, for one thing. Just accept that.

And also, she said, “You’ve got gray hair. Time to appreciate its benefits.”

Voices correspondent Stefanie Pettit can be reached by email at upwindsailor@comcast.net