Faith in humanity slowly being restored.

It's very refreshing to run into people who aren't oblivious, self-absorbed jerks or people who can recognize when they've acted in such a manner and apologize for it.

I had to stop at the grocery store on the way home from work the other day. As I was driving through the parking lot, I saw an open space and made my way to it. I say open in the sense that there was no car parked in that spot; there was however, a guy standing in it and talking on his cell. I pulled up and waited for him to move on through, my natural assumption being that he was on his way in or perhaps, out of the store and simply paused there. But, he wasn't moving. He just stood there yakking away. He turned in my direction, looked at my car then made eye contact with me. "Ahh... here we go, now he'll move," I thought. Not so much. He just turned away and continued his conversation. It was the end of the day, I just needed a couple of things for dinner and I just wanted to get home. Rather than raise the local level of douchebaggery any more by honking at him or giving him the finger, I just rolled my eyes, shook my head and drove on by to park in the next available spot. I walked past him on the way in to the store and he was still blathering away on the phone, in the same spot. By the time I entered the store and made my way over to the bakery (we were having spaghetti with a sauce made from butternut squash and I needed a loaf of crusty bread to go with it), I had all but forgotten about him. That's when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I looked around and there was Cell Phone Guy. He looked slightly embarrassed and said he wanted to apologize for being in my way; "I'm sorry, I was just spacing out there and didn't realize what I was doing. I'm really sorry." I accepted his apology, he wished me a good day and we went our separate ways.

Just like that, I was in a better mood. Not that him blocking my space made my mood any worse, but his recognition of his own disregard and simple act of contrition went quite a way to lightening it. It's cool that there are still people out there without that 'it's all about me!' attitude that seems so pervasive these days. I hope to see more of it.