CALEDONIA, Mich. — A woman went to the grocery store to pick up a birthday cake — and ended up with a surprise.
Lisa Aldrich said in a Facebook post that she went to a Meijer grocery store in Michigan to get a cake decorated for someone’s birthday. She asked a person she assumed was a bakery employee to write a message on it. Aldrich then took the cake without really looking at it.
“After looking, I nervously laughed and headed to check out — it didn’t really matter to me that it looked so bad,” wrote Aldrich. She said employees offered to make her a new one, but she stuck with the one she had.
The cashiers were concerned and called a manager over. And then it all became clear.
“To my surprise, after they discussed it, 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,’” wrote Aldrich on Facebook.
Aldrich added: “So I guess the moral of the story is that kindness is important!”
Aldrich’s post is public and has been shared more than 38,000 times as of Tuesday evening.
She later wrote on Facebook that she had received messages from than 100 people who have a loved one with autism, thanking her for sharing her story.
“Be nice. That is all,” wrote Aldrich. “I can’t believe how awesome God is that he is using this story to bless so many people! God is so, so good.”
She was also concerned that the employee would be punished, but it seems not to have been an issue. In one comment, she wrote, “I told them not to worry about it, because I really didn’t mind. I wouldn’t even let them discount the cake.”
She went to the store the next day and said, “I talked to the store manager today. The wonderful lady who helped me with the cake did NOT get in trouble- they told her to do whatever she needed to do to serve the customer’s needs, and she did just that.”
