While waiting for my plane to leave the San Jose airport recently, I arrived earlier than usual and found myself with an hour to spare and the need to acquire some small gift to take to the staff at our San Antonio branch, to which I was traveling. So, I dropped into the Discover store at the new and improved Terminal A. (It really is improved: wi-fi is available for free throughout the airport, and every seat has a plug. You can tell you are in Silicon Valley. I like it!)
At the Discover store, I found products from an interesting new firm: Tom Ranch. At least, it is new to me, and I am fairly familiar with companies that sell California souvenirs since I am always needing souvenirs for our distant branch personnel. There were some suitable gifts: chocolate-covered cherries, chocolate pistachios, and wine-infused chocolates in pill-box-shaped containers. Intriguing. I settled for tea chocolates in an eyeglass-holder-shaped tin.
As I was browsing, the sales clerk, who had recently transferred to this store, struck up a conversation. I had time, and there were no other customers. So, we chatted a bit. When I had selected the gifts I wanted, he asked if I were military. I told him that I am no longer a member of the Armed Forces but do work with the military and shared that I was actually on my way to an air base, which housed our organization's local branch.
When he rang up my order, he proudly announced that he was giving me a 33% discount, which made the cost of my few gifts very affordable.
"Do you want to see my government I.D.?" I asked him.
"No," he answered. "I am not giving you a military discount. I am giving you a higher discount -- for being nice."
Cool!
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About Me
- Elizabeth Mahlou
- I am the mother of 4 birth children (plus 3 others who lived with us) and grandmother of 2, all of them exceptional children. Married for 42 years, I grew up in Maine, live in California, and work in many places in education, linguistics, and program management. In my spare time, I rescue and tame feral cats and have the scars to prove it. A long-time ignorantly blissful atheist converted by a theophanic experience to Catholicism, I am now a joyful catechist. Oh, I also authored a dozen books, two under my pen name of Mahlou (Blest Atheist and A Believer-in-Waiting's First Encounters with God).
Recommended Reading List
Because I am blog inept, I don't quite know how to get a reading list to stay at the end of the page and not disappear from sight. Therefore, I entered it as my first post. I suppose that is not all that bad because readers started commenting about the books, even suggesting additional readings. So, you can participate with others in my reading list by clicking here.I do post additional books as I read them and find them to be meaningful to me, and therefore, hopefully, meaningful to you. One advantage of all the plane traveling I do is that I acquire reading time that I might not otherwise take.
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