Look, we know you’d be just as blown away as we are if you could see it for yourselves, but you’ve got to take our word for it that we’re currently witnessing a stunning masterclass in a field at which few people ever truly excel: This guy is doing just an all around great job waiting in the checkout line at Whole Foods.
Trust us when we tell you that this guy is absolutely crushing it.
Most people hardly give the act of waiting to check out at Whole Foods a second thought, but the shopper immediately in line ahead of us at register five is rising to the task with a mindfulness and alacrity that can only be understood as virtuosic. For one thing, his spatial awareness is off the charts—there’s virtually zero downtime between the cart in front of him moving up and him closing the distance, though he does so in a way that doesn’t feel the least bit impatient or aggressive. And whenever another shopper needs to cut horizontally through the checkout line, this guy graciously pivots his cart to the side to grant them safe passage without a single word needing to be exchanged. He’s not getting distracted by his phone or staring off vacantly into the middle distance, he’s just seamlessly adapting to the ever-changing space around him like water flowing through a stream. We’re not sure how to explain this, but just being in the same line as him puts us in a state of absolute calm.
Just a couple minutes ago, for instance, they opened up another register way down the other end of the store, and instead of joining the chaotic scrum to jockey for a slightly faster checkout time, this exemplar of shopperly virtue ahead of us chose to remain in place and avoid contributing to the melee. Hell, on another day we might have joined in ourselves, but something about this shopper’s incredible altruism is inspiring us to do a better job of waiting in line at Whole Foods as well. He’s gently smiling at the cashier’s pleasant banter up ahead, shifting his placement ever so deftly whenever someone needs to get a Burt’s Bees lip balm or apple cider vinegar immunity booster from the displays near the checkout, and, holy shit, he even just picked up a piece of fruit leather that the toddler of the shopper ahead of him tossed out of her cart when she wasn’t looking! Was extremely affable and courteous about it too, and now everyone in the whole line is just beaming from the vicarious charm of his goodwill.
Man, we wish we could wait in line with a shopper like this every time we go to Whole Foods!
Alright, he’s in the home stretch now, and goddamn is this guy ever following through. He waited a few beats to see if the shopper ahead of him would put down the checkout divider herself to make sure she wouldn’t feel rushed, and when she didn’t, he non-judgmentally set it down with a good 8 inches of buffer space behind her items in case she needed the room to accommodate a last-minute addition, and a couple extra inches before his own items so no grapefruits or top-heavy olive oil bottles could accidentally tumble over to her side from the conveyor belt’s momentum. He’s unloading his items so quickly and effectively that we’d bet money he’s been deliberately arranging his cart in anticipation of this moment the entire time he’s been shopping. And what an absolute star, he just plopped down a couple reusable bags that you just know he’s going to take point on bagging to help the cashier compensate for not having a staff bagger at her register.
Honestly, we’re gonna miss this guy once he finally pays for his groceries and leaves the store. And if that still doesn’t make sense to you, well, we truly hope you’ll get to wait in a checkout line with someone who makes you understand someday.
