“It looks like it’s going to rain,” the supermarket checkout girl said.

“When it rains, it pours.” I replied.

Her name tag said “Claire.” I looked at Claire’s hands. She had dirt under her nails. It was from gardening that morning in her elderly neighbor’s vegetable patch. She had been helping Mrs. Sharp with her garden ever since Mr. Sharp passed away. Mrs. Sharp took great care in her gardening and taught the checkout girl to do the same. Whenever Claire left the garden, Mrs. Sharp would call after her: “take care!”

Claire’s coworker once mentioned how disgusting she thought dirty nails were. Claire used to be more self-conscious when she was younger. So did I. Now, Claire’s dirty nails reminded her of helping Mrs. Sharp. Claire was especially nice to all the elderly people who came through her checkout line. Even people in a bad mood. I’m not old yet, but she was still nice to me.

Meanwhile, in the bread aisle, a man was putting a jar of blackberry jam into his cart. He had been buying the same jam for six years. Every day for breakfast he would eat an English muffin with blackberry jam. And coffee. He would buy different coffee, but never different jam. He ate so much jam that it had stained his teeth. He planned on eating jam until the day he died.

Several aisles down, an expectant mother walked through the diaper aisle and her heart fluttered. She only had one item in the basket she was holding. It was a jar of Nutella. It was the larger-sized jar of Nutella.

Amongst the juices, a man was trying to remember what kind of Capri-Sun his children liked best. He was a very practical man. He bought the flavor that was on sale.

In a car outside, a teenager extinguished a cigarette in the ashtray. There were seven cigarette butts in the ashtray. One of the butts had a lipstick stain.

I finished paying for my groceries.

“Take care!” Claire said as I hoisted up my bags of food. I could tell from her voice that she meant it too.

On my way out, I saw a man at the ticket-scratcher machine. He was buying a piece of paper that might give him money. The ticket he purchased ended up giving him eight hundred dollars. He spent some of the money on a skateboard for his daughter for her birthday. At her birthday party, she would cry when they brought her the cake. She cried because she had never felt so loved in her life.

Outside, a sparrow crashed into the store window. I watched it fall into lifelessness on the dirt-strewn concrete.

As I walked away, I felt a raindrop on my face.

When it rains, it pours.

Jack Swain is conducting interviews for his column. If you are interested, please contact [email protected] Also think about calling your mom because she would probably like to hear from you! But only if you are in the mood. You have to be in the mood for that sort of thing.