Secret Santa, Mahlou Style

Last night Donnie and I decided to play secret santa at the K-Mart store in the nearest city (his idea, and ultimately, his money). We drove there before going to dinner at the Foster's Freeze there. After waiting quite a long time in line at the layaway counter -- we wanted everyone to get through so we could have a little "secrecy" -- we finally had our turn. We explained to the sales clerk at the counter that we would like to pay off a couple of Christmas layaways, especially ones with toys for children. Not having done this before, we did not know how it should work, and neither did the clerk have any experience in this. She pulled four possibilities, one for Donnie and one for me and a couple of backups in case people could not be reached. (She wanted to make sure that whoever was "surprised" would be able to come to the store and pick up the layaway while she was there; otherwise, there was no way to guarantee that the connection would be properly made between owner and package.) She called the first family, and apparently the sister answered and promised to get the word to the layawayer, promising that she would make sure that the package would be picked up before the store closed. The other three did not answer; it was getting late, and we were getting hungry. So, having taken a lot of appreciated time from the clerk, we left as a couple young mothers came up to the layaway counter. As we were walking toward the store exit, we heard someone calling to us, "Excuse me, excuse me." We turned around to see one of the young women who had come up to the lawaway counter as we were leaving. Yep, it was the person's whose lawaway we had paid off -- clearly someone who probably needed the help. She hugged us and thanked us. So much for being a "secret" Santa!