Get all your news in one place.
100's of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
Lifestyle
Teanne Fairfield-Smith as told to Katie Cunningham

The kindness of strangers: a woman paid for my groceries when I couldn’t

Illustration of a women shopping for groceries with her child.
‘That woman could see I was flustered and embarrassed at the busy checkout and stepped in to save the day.’ Illustration: Guardian Design/Alamy

At the Aldi checkout I was having trouble paying for my $100 grocery shop. It wasn’t that I couldn’t afford to pay, I’d just forgotten to transfer money into our everyday transaction account. I was trying to move the money over quickly at the checkout but the banking app was down. I had my two little kids with me, a toddler and a baby, one of whom had started screaming.

With a growing queue of other customers behind me, the checkout guy set aside my receipt for the scanned groceries and saved it, then went on to serving other people. Frantically, I called my husband and asked him to come down to the supermarket with his bank card and pay, as it didn’t seem that I was going to be able to. While I was on the phone to him, a lady in the line paid for her groceries – then told the checkout guy, “I’ll pay for hers, too.”

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100's of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.