The Best Policy

There's a scene in the movie, "The Family Man" where Nicolas Cage walks into
a convenience store. Don Cheadle (who is really an angel) is working at the
counter. There's a girl in line before Cage who is buying something for
99 cents. She hands Cheadle a dollar. Cheadle takes nine dollars out of the
drawer and counts it out to the girl, giving her way too much change. The
girl doesn't correct him and sees that he is handing her way too much money...
change for a ten. Yet, she picks it up and puts it in her pocket without saying
a word. When she is walking out the door, Cheadle stops her to give her
another chance and asks if there is anything else she needs. She shakes her
head and walks out. Cheadle looks over at Cage and says, "Did you see that?
She was willing to sell her character for nine dollars. Nine Dollars!"

What I'm getting at, is an eerily similar thing happened to me today at the mall.
We stopped at the food court for lunch. Our bill came to approximately fourteen
dollars. I gave the woman a twenty and she immediately gave me back a ten and
a five in change. I didn't really look at it, but it seemed odd. When I got to our
table I thought about it and realized that she gave me nine dollars too much
change. I thought about it for a couple of seconds and then went up to tell
her she made a mistake and gave me too much change. She was very happy
and even blessed me!

Am I a saint? No, of course not. Far from it. But whenever something like that
happens, I think of the scene from the movie and ask myself if someone above
is watching me, seeing what I'd do. Kind of a test. Weird that a scene from a
movie would make me a better person, but I think in this case it has. Maybe
someday more people will think like this and make the world a better place.