“Have you tried that? Is it good?”
The cashier at Trader Joe’s, a young 20s-something woman with dark hair and blue eyeliner pointed to the Spicy Peanutty Noodle Bowl with Chicken that I get every time I go.
“Yeah! I like it,” I replied.
“Is it very spicy or not too bad?”
“I’d say it’s not too bad. I’m usually a medium spicy kinda girl.”
“Yeah, okay, I like medium spicy too,” she said, scanning my other items. “Cause I was thinking about having it for lunch, but you never know with spice… and it’s in the middle of the day, you know.”
I laughed. “Well, I think it’s good. It’s definitely got a kick. But it’s not like wasabi, I hate that.”
“Oh, me too.”
We continued to talk about different levels of spice, with her coworker, a middle-aged blonde, chiming in as she joined to bag my groceries: “I can’t do wasabi, but I put hot sauce on just about everything.”
“I like jalapeños, too,” the cashier said. “If there aren’t too many seeds. The seeds are what do it.”
“Not for me,” the blonde said. “I’d rather not leave the spice up to chance. By the way, do you want a new one?”
She held up the red pepper I’d grabbed.
“Sure, but weird request: can you make sure it has 4 lobes at the bottom? They’re supposed to be sweeter.” (I looked this up just now while searching for the correct term for the pepper parts and apparently it’s a myth. Go figure!)
“Well, I did not know that! But I most certainly will look for you.”
As I got home a bit later and unloaded my groceries, I found myself thinking about this 12-minute podcast episode that Ariel sent to me during the pandemic: “The Lost Joys of Talking to Strangers.”
In the episode, Madeline K. Sofia speaks with Yowei Shaw, who reports on her interview with social psychologist and professor Elizabeth Dunn about the importance of strangers. After noticing how her boyfriend’s grumpy mood would improve (and stay that way!) whenever he’d have a random encounter with a stranger or acquaintance, Dunn began to study how short interactions with strangers affect our mood.
Dunn discovered that these interactions did boost peoples’ mood and affect in a positive way. Drawing on her own studies of couples and café customers, as well as others conducted by Nicholas Epley and Juliana Schroeder about commuters on buses and trains and people in waiting rooms, Dunn started to develop a theory. Essentially, when we talk to strangers, we try to be friendly and cheerful because of societal norms. And when these interactions go well, they lift our mood and make us feel more positive, as well as affirm our existence and give us this sense of connection.
The podcast episode reminisces about these random interactions with strangers. When we were in quarantine, we only really spoke to those we lived with or our closest friends and family. We missed these bursts of happiness and connection. Now, in 2024, they’re possible again.
I think about my errands-filled morning and the many interactions I’ve had with strangers already: the two people at the office where I went to pick up our security deposit; the woman working at Warby Parker who was stunned by how my 11-year-old pair had lost its polarization, and offered me 25% off a new pair, which she helped me pick out; the woman who gives me a facial every month; and then the cashier and bagger at Trader Joe’s.
I take a bite of my noodle bowl and wonder if the cashier decided to try it. I realize it’s got a bit more than a kick. But it’s definitely delicious.
Writing With Abandon 