TALKING ABOUT MARJORAM

“I have always relied on the kindness of strangers.”

We needed some marjoram. NEED I tell ‘ya! Zen-Den was making gyros for dinner.

He’d made the tzatziki sauce, bought the feta and black olives and pitas and peppers, but alas and alack when he went to put together the dry blend for flavoring the meat we didn’t have any marjoram.

Thus I went to the grocery to buy some.

Being familiar with our Kroger I knew where the spice aisle was in the store, but when I stood there looking at the shelves with about 3 gazillion jars and containers and bottles of spices and herbs and extracts, I didn’t see marjoram.

In fact, I couldn’t even find a little tag that showed it had ever been on a shelf.

As if, I muttered, knowing it had to be there, right?

So in what for an introvert might be considered stepping outside your comfort zone, I asked two friendly chatty women standing beside me if they saw any marjoram. Turned out they were a mother [70-ish] and her daughter [40-ish] who were enthusiastic about joining my impromptu scavenger hunt in the spice aisle.

Hence we three stood there, positioning our bifocals just so, and looked for the elusive marjoram plus what they were looking for [thyme and poultry seasoning]. We found what they needed, many times over, but the marjoram just wasn’t there.

I shrugged, thanked them for their help and went on my way, walking a few aisles away from the spice aisle to where I knew I needed to pick up something else.

But as I was standing in the middle of that aisle, I heard the younger woman yelling “I found it!” as she ran up to me with a jar of marjoram. She handed me the herb and explained that she’d found it with the label turned around backwards, in the wrong spot, hidden behind some oregano.

And then because she was a compassionate foodie person, she’d come looking for me by going up and down the aisles, wanting to make sure I got what I came to the store for.

Bashfully, almost apologetically, she explained that once she started doing something she had to finish it, she was compulsive like that, and this sort of search was her thing.

I had to find it, she told me.

I thanked her over and over, then waved good-bye while thinking, there really are some nice people in this world who don’t want to do anything more than just help other people.

And fortunately for the fate of our Greek dinner, I’d just met one.

QUESTIONS OF THE DAY

Have you ever asked a stranger for help finding something in a store? How’d that go for you?

Do you wonder sometimes how we have evolved into a society in which an act of kindness like this one is so rare that it is almost shocking?

Do you use marjoram in cooking? We have a lot of it now, so any recipe suggestions are welcome.

AND FINALLY FOUR READER COMMENTS…

About the Value of Manufactured Victories:

“Manufactured victories are part of my time management process. Like painting a wall. I get out the paint, then celebrate. Check for the brushes (which I find), dropcloths and tools. Then I celebrate. Now I notice I forgot something and need a store run. The good news-bad news is that I get to celebrate when I come home. All this celebrating and I haven’t yet painted the dang wall!”

~ Kate Crimmins

“… every blog post is its own victory–over apathy, inertia, and sometimes technology…. I feel like failure gets a bad rap in our winner-centric country. I’d like to normalize failure, especially for our kids. You might not have won, but you learned a ton!”

~ AutumnAshbough

“I think manufactured victories are very similar to moral victories, where the object was not to win but to actually try real hard. (Of course, a win is nice, too.)”

~ John Holton

“I don’t agree with the Vulcans that the DS9 crew had manufactured their victory. They were victorious in their sportsmanship. They didn’t begrudge the Vulcans their win, but the DS9 team had fun and experienced healthy camaraderie by showing up and playing together.”

~ Marie A Bailey