Sometimes when I am wondering what to write about in my next column, a moment comes along that slaps me upside the head with my subject matter. That happened to me recently when I was exiting a coffee shop.   

When I got to the door, I saw two college-aged women behind me. If I see someone behind me when I’m entering or exiting a place, I typically hold the door and let them go before me — regardless of their age or gender. I even find it more delicious to do so if I beat someone in a subtle race to the door and then use my victory to pleasantly surprise them by holding the door. It makes me feel good and it often seems to make whoever I hold the door for feel good. 

So on that day at the coffee shop, I held the door, and the first young woman walked through as if she was an aristocrat and I was a servant at her family’s country estate in Lancashire. She didn’t even look at me, let alone thank me. If I were more judgmental, and/or more of a curmudgeon, I might write that, at least in that moment, she seemed entitled, self-important and self-involved. 

The second young woman’s reaction to my holding the door for them was quite the opposite — a big smile of thanks. 

There was a vestibule between the door to the coffee shop and the door to the outside. Almost always when I hold the door for someone and there is another door, that person holds the second door for me in turn, tying a nice little bow around our interaction. 

In this instance, it didn’t appear it even occurred to either of the young women to hold the door for me. Indeed, they left it to slam in my face, without looking back. Again, if I were less spiritually evolved, and thus more subject to pique, I might write that it ticked me off. I would have expected as much from the first young woman, but I was disappointed in the second, who had seemed to appreciate my gesture. 

Then another young woman, who was entering the vestibule from the outside at that moment, stepped in to save the day. She grabbed the door, smiled and held it for me to exit.

When I got to my car, I decided that since we were in a college town, I’d take a professorial approach and give everyone involved in my “Drama of the Doors” a letter grade.

The young person who held the outside door for me would get an A. She missed the midterm at the first door, but was excused because of not being in the coffee shop to begin with. Thus her entire grade was based on the final exam at the outer door, and she’d aced it. 

The young woman who’d offered such a pleasant thanks at the first door, but was content to let the second door break my nose, would get a C, reflecting an A on the midterm and an F on the final. If the final was weighted more than the midterm, I’d have to give her a C-minus. 

I felt I had to give an F to the Duchess of Lancashire, who’d flunked both the midterm at the front door and the final at the second door. In my professorial role, there was nothing personal about my flunking her, anything otherwise would be grade inflation. I am ultimately a bit of a softie though, and were she to ask if there was anything she could do to pass the course, I’d suggest she do some door holding of her own, and write a paper about it. If I was convinced the paper reflected her actual experience and was not written by artificial intelligence (AI), I’d up her grade to a passing D. 

Then I realized I would have to give myself only a B-minus, or perhaps even a C. I’d earned an A for holding the door, but brought my grade down by my expectations of gratitude and reciprocation, instead of letting the intrinsic worth of the act itself suffice.

So that’s my column for this month. Nothing so grand as a summation of and prescription for the ills of the country and/or the world. Just a few moments of humankind being human that you might say were as simple as ABC. 

Or, in this case, A, B-minus, C, C-minus, D and F.

Amherst resident Richard McCarthy, a longtime columnist at the Springfield Republican, writes a monthly column for the Gazette.