Soup




It's not often that I'm reduced to tears in a supermarket. In fact, it's probably only happened two times before today.

One of those was Christmas Eve Eve, 23 December, a couple of years ago, when our local Sainsbury's had run out of sprouts! My tears were not sad for the impending absence of miniature cabbages from my festive feast, but laughter induced tears from witnessing what appeared to be the end of the world for some fellow shoppers and their total disregard for the true meaning of the season, in their fight over the last few bags of those little green gasballs of delight. The second, some crazy shopping shenanigans with my Boo, my equally crazy daughter with whom I have a shared humour wavelength which is quite dangerous in certain scenarios, such as supermarket shopping. Again it was Sainsbury's and again they were tears of laughter.

Today, however, was different. On more than one note. The store of choice was Lidl. Easter Saturday lunchtime, fairly quiet, fairly uneventful. Until an older gentleman approached me holding a packet of dried noodles. "Soup!", he said, thrusting the pack towards me. "Soup?" more of a question now. I smiled, "No. Noodles", I replied, wondering, as the words left my lips, whether he thought they were soup or was merely questioning whether they were suitable for soup.  "Soup?" he asked again, a little desperation in his voice. I looked around, we were in the right aisle, he followed me to the soup where I pointed out tins of vegetable or minestrone and boxes of cup-a-soup at which he excitedly said "Yes, soup!" I relayed what was on offer: Vegetable, Minestrone or Chicken. "Yes! Chicken!" he pronounced even more animated. I passed him 1 box, he waited, "Another?", he nodded as I passed them to him, and another, 3.

And then.

He looked at me. "Thank you", he said. "No English", he said. "That's ok, you're welcome", I replied. "What country?" I asked. "Iran", he answered. "Very nice" I said. And with that he took my hand, and gently kissed it. "Thank you", he said, with such kindness and gratitude in his eyes.

And my eyes, well they began to sting, that piercing sting feel that comes right before they start to leak a little.

And life felt a little bit nicer.

https://youtu.be/BshxCIjNEjY



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