Incredible

Something crazy happened and I am compelled to share the story.

Last week, after the girls had woken up from their afternoon naps and I settled the big one in front of the tv with a snack, I took the baby out in the front yard for a leisurely walk to the mailbox. She loves looking around out there- we have lots of squirrels, birds, and bunnies, not to mention the plants and wind and trees.

I noticed a man with white hair tucked into a baseball cap in a bright blue shirt walking door to door across the street- not unusual, we get a lot of solicitors.

We grabbed the mail and were standing on the sidewalk, looking up at our huge oak tree, when I noticed the man had made it around to our house. I hoped he wouldn't keep me outside forever talking about which energy company or internet company I use or trying to sell me a new roof.

As he's walking up, he is pulling a paper out of his pocket and saying, "I got a permit from the City of Plano to be out here, to show that I'm legit, and here it is. They only give these out for a month at a time- they are really serious about lowering the amount of solicitors. Did you hear that story of a terrible rape down in Dallas a few years back? I don't want anyone to feel worried when they see me coming. I was looking for a no soliciting sign first before I left my card on your door. Do you live here?"

I recognized him. I knew this guy. I had just been thinking about him a couple of weeks ago.

He is a painter I worked with- one of my customers from the first paint store I ever managed. That store was so small, we only had a handful of regular customers- maybe two handfuls of customers, period. He's someone you don't forget because he is friendly and he will talk your ear off for at least 30 minutes at a time, longer if you let him.

Sometimes, if we were busy, I would get annoyed at how long he could talk, seemingly oblivious to the line of five other customers waiting for me to match their paint, or shake something up, or just ring them up for a paintbrush. Meanwhile, he's telling me about some customer of his who is really picky, or about his family who are all long gone.

If we weren't busy, and I had finished all my paperwork, I would listen to him talk as long as he wanted to. He would always take at least 2-3 of the free donuts we brought in on Fridays. He rarely bought much paint, maybe a gallon or two here or there. It seemed like he didn't have much work. I knew he lived in a detached garage on a friend's property and wasn't married- probably never had been. He is religious, and that peppers most of his conversations.

When I sliced open my thumb on some metal rack in the warehouse, he told me how once he sawed his arm open so badly he had to go to Parkland because he didn't have insurance and sat there in the ER for hours waiting for them to sew him up. He had to buy new clothes to go finish the paint job he was on the next day.

He also had the dirtiest pair of painter's whites I've ever seen. Layers upon layers upon layers of paint covered the thighs, like he never used rags and just wiped everything on his pants.

I got on a kick during my second year at the store where I asked all of my customers when their birthdays were and then made them cakes.

The mullet brothers- another regular set of customers- were happy and made a special trip to pick it up, but never told me if they liked the actual cake or not. (Did I mention I asked all the customers their favorite flavor? The mullet brothers preferred Butter Cake which I'd never made before and when I went to cook it it called for 2 sticks of butter which I didn't have so I substituted apple sauce....they might not have actually liked that cake! haha)

When I made David Lamb his birthday cake, he almost cried and said, "Thank you! Do you know I've never had a birthday cake in my whole life?" He was in is 60's.

I never forgot him because of the birthday cake, and how friendly he was, even if I forgot his name.

So when I saw him walk up and hand me his business card, I said, "I know you."

He seemed so confused and I reminded him that I worked at that store, and he still seemed a little confused but we talked through some details like about how I cut my thumb (I left out the birthday cake story); how I left when I had my kids, and how it was so awesome that we were getting to chat.

I offered him a drink from our drink fridge- this was the one time I wished we kept bottled water instead of the refillable ones for just our family- and he accepted a Dr. Pepper.

He followed me into my house and complimented the exterior paint, and asked questions about the age of the houses in the neighborhood- he wants to avoid working on houses built prior to 1978 because of the potential for lead paint. Suddenly I remembered when we got lead testing kits at the store and he was the only customer to buy them, use them, or even worry about being safe and using proper lead abatement procedures on his jobs.

He never made me feel weird for being so young and having such a fancy house. He commented on my wood kitchen and how he thinks stained wood will be coming back into style and how we should not paint over our cabinets.

I gave him the drink and we talked for a few more minutes while he cooled off. My favorite thing is when someone accepts a drink out of our drink fridge!

All in all, he was here for about 30 minutes, which is probably an average conversation with him. I felt so at peace with the encounter, almost to the point of elation. It felt like what I did at the paint store those 8 years mattered to someone somewhere.

When I felt beat down, overworked, unappreciated... when I worked on Christmas Eve with the flu and no heat in the store and only had one customer, when I almost lost Abby early in that pregnancy and had to go on a lifting restriction, all of the minuscule ways I was discriminated against for being a girl, for being small, for having eyelashes so the customers thought there's no way I could possibly know anything about complex problems or how to run a business.... for all the times I chose not to wear makeup so the customers wouldn't think I was pretty and would take me seriously. For all the times I surprised a customer with how much paint I could lift, and for the issues with my hips I still have today from carrying too much weight the wrong way, over and over and over for years...

I realize these problems are minor compared to what my friends with brown skin deal with every single day, and I'm not equipped to talk about that, but in my little world, I experienced a tiny sliver of discrimination for how I looked in that world, in the construction world.

When I left, I only took the satisfaction of the accomplishments I made on paper- the sales I made, the budgets I exceeded, the improvements in inventory that reflected so well on my P&L.

I never thought that I had an impact on my customers or that anyone would remember me.

I remember them: the yoga instructor who told me that downward dog should be comfortable and work your shoulders; the bubbly faux finisher whose husband got cancer but she gave me her fancy moving boxes for free and made me a decorated wine bottle for our new house; the friendly painter whose wife died of breast cancer and soon after he started dating a new woman and started talking about sex at my store; the jerk who finished painting a wall I was working on while I did some annoying tricks to tint his big batch paint a different color for free; the woman who bought hundreds of samples and painted her house a color she didn't test out; the painter who brought her cute daughter in with her all the time and we later found out her husband was extremely abusive but she stayed with him; the homeowner who was putting zebra carpet on her stairs and had a little book with the paint colors and finishes for every room in her new house.... I could go on and on.

I thought I was forgettable.

I wanted David Lamb to remember me for the birthday cake, but he remembered me for me. And I remembered him. And that's kind of incredible.