Standing close behind me in line at the T.J.Maxx was a willowy woman in her early seventies with a cordial smile and eyes that anchored on the cashier and me as if she had something to share. Before I could put my wallet away, she jumped in, asking the cashier and me, “Do you know what a ReadeREST is?

“I was watching ‘Shark Tank’ and I found out about this,” she went on. “I just got it in the mail today.”

She pointed to the narrow, silver device she was wearing on the collar of her robin’s egg blue oxford shirt. “You see,” she said. “It’s for your reading glasses so you don’t need to buy an eyeglass necklace. You put it on like this.” She demonstrated by unattaching and reattaching the magnetic clip. “Isn’t that great?”

I was actually in a hurry, but if people want to talk with me in this day and age of what I call the “unencounter” (i.e. the disconnect from real people when in their presence), I listen if I possibly can.

“I like it,” I said, “but I’d be worried that I’d forget that it was on my shirt and it would end up in the washing machine.”

“I’m not worried about that,” she said, beaming and hung her glasses back over the ReadeREST.

I’ve never watched Shark Tank, and I doubt I will ever buy a ReadeREST, but it was good to see someone so excited about something, that she wanted to share it with everyone. Whatever it takes to connect with someone, I thought. That’s what counts.