But for the first time, it wouldn't have been over something I lost: a friend, a love, a family member. I guess if I had to connect the reason why back to myself, it would be something I never had in the first place.I went grocery shopping today. And this Tom Thumb down the street, like many grocery stores, does a good thing and hires some of society's truly most unfortunate people - sufferers of birth defects. The kind that result in physical deformities and incomplete mental development. You know the kind. You've most likely been in such a store before. But this store has a twist. It just got remodeled - the building and its employees. They all got retrained to be extra polite. Butchers ask you how you're doing; same story with random employees restocking the shelves. Imagine Van Wilder walking into a Hollywood grocery store and you'd get a surprisingly good image of what it was like. Not surprisingly, it's the same story with the cashier and the bagger, a Miss Kim Y. according to her nametag. What looked like a pair of children's sunglasses failed to hide Kim's receded, crossed eyes which I avoided like most people do. That didn't last. As I took my shopping cart back to take off, Kim said, in a stereotypically impeded voice, "What was your name again?"And in my stereotypical blakerson(TM) accent (read: unwittingly Texan), I said, "I'm Blake.""Umblake?" Quickly realizing that with my lazy speech I have no right to describe anyone as "impeded," I nodded and gave her credit for effort. "Have a very nice day," she managed to squeak out. Enthusiastically, I answered, "Thank you! You too!" just because I'm generally nice to people at stores. After that encounter, I took my cart and rolled out. But by the time I got to the car, it hit me: she got retrained too. Considering how hard it is for most sufferers of stunted cognitive growth to learn anything once, much less twice, I hoped she didn't go through the anti-fairy-tale image that went through my head of a heartless manager of an Arlington grocery store, yelling at her until she said the line and said it right. It hit me that I had been rushing through that store to make sure the organic crap I bought from Whole Foods didn't get too hot sitting in the back of my BMW. God, it makes me sick just to write that sentence. It hit me, like a sucker punch straight out of Fight Club, that this was not a legitimate concern. It hit me that it's a wonderful, good civilization that can at least give a real life to someone born with such unfortunate circumstances. It nearly drove me to tears that I couldn't do anything to be a stroke of good luck for this young woman. If I had the kind of money that my friends and family expect me to make 10 years from now, I would have stopped in my tracks and said, "Today's your lucky day," and cut a check for as much as I could stand to give to someone to make their year. $5,000. $10,000. $50,000. And the usual advice that accompanies such ridiculous charity - "Spend this wisely" - could go without being said just once. $50,000 in the right hands can solve a lot of problems. In the wrong hands, it creates many more. But this poor young woman has paid her dues to an extent that none of my known readers ever likely will. But someone in that condition (mind you, one that never goes away) who probably survived multiple years in a Texas public school and still shows up to work every day is not liable to take a cash handout and go throw a $50k crack party. This woman has paid her dues, and she deserves to have some of her problems taken away. For what it's worth, a manager that would hire her probably isn't going to be the nightmare manager I thought of earlier. Nevertheless, Kim Y. deserves to have something truly good happen for her. And until that very-distant day arrives where I'm pulling down real cash, I'm open to suggestions.