It’s hard to make birthday cake even more lovable than it already is, but thanks to a viral social media post, we may have just accomplished the near-impossible. Epitomizing the warm fuzzy feels of the holiday season, one Michigan woman’s pastry purchase from a local Meijer supermarket is a testament to the importance of kindness, and the power of a good Facebook post.
Picked out a cake at Meijer. Asked bakery-looking-employee if she could write on it for me. She said she would, and…
Posted by Lisa Sarber Aldrich on Sunday, 29 November 2015
On Sunday, Lisa Sarber Aldrich of Grand Rapids, Michigan, took a trip to her local Meijer. After picking out a cake, she “asked [a] bakery-looking-employee if she could write on it,” hoping to add a bit of customization to the pastry. “She said she would, and after a long time, she came and presented me with this cake,” Aldrich wrote on Facebook. “I looked her In the eye and said thank you before I even looked at the cake,” she continued.
Even after examining the employee’s handiwork, Aldrich decided just to go with the flow, noting, “it didn’t really matter to me that it looked so bad — I thought people would think it was funny.” And while she didn’t play the role of the angry customer, other Meijer employees were less than pleased. When Aldrich went to the self-checkout station to pay for the cake, attending cashiers seemed perplexed by the lettering, “and called a few more cashiers and a manager over to look, even taking pictures.”
But rather than berating the employee who decorated the cake, Aldrich received a pleasant surprise. “After they discussed it,” she wrote, “One cashier put her arm on my shoulder and said, ‘The girl who wrote that has autism. Thank you for smiling and thanking her — even though she’s not supposed to write on cakes, you probably made her day.'”
As of press time, the original post has been shared nearly 100,000 times, and a number of Facebook users have chimed in to express their appreciation for Aldrich’s story. The following day, the good samaritan added an update, commenting, “The wonderful lady who helped me with the cake did NOT get in trouble — [Meijer] told her to do whatever she needed to do to serve the customer’s needs, and she did just that.”
Happy holidays, everyone! And as Aldrich notes, “I guess the moral of the story is that kindness is important!”
