With all the nasty stuff happening in the world, I thought I’d concentrate on finding the good news.
So, if you’ve been the beneficiary of a Random Act of Kindness, have done a Random Act of Kindness, saw a Random Act of Kindness… well, you get the idea.
Let’s hear some good news for a change!
(I took this picture on our trip to Niagara Falls – a full rainbow. How gorgeous! How random! LOL)
I’ll start. I’ve got one of each.
Around Christmas I was in Dick’s Sporting Goods and had a few coupons from a coupon book from the local school. I used one of the $15 off $75 and figured I probably wouldn’t use the other. So I gave it to the woman in front of me. She was very appreciative.
A few weeks later I was in a convenience store and had just put some food down on the counter, okay more than some, and realized one of the kids must have gone in my wallet b/c the cash was gone. Sigh. So I had to dig out the debit card. The guy behind me didn’t feel like waiting, so he paid for my stuff and his.
Next?
I don’t often let others know I do this kind of stuff but here goes. A friend of mine who lives in Missouri had her car totaled. Luckily, she came out of he accident unharmed. She only carried liability insurance on the car so no payout to go towards a replacement. She couldn’t afford the down payment on anything she found in her area that was in decent condition. It didn’t matter to anyone that she could easily afford the monthly costs. So, being the mean person I am, I gave her the money for the down payment.
I have one of each, too. Until I read Judi’s, I’d forgotten how connected they are.
A couple weeks ago, I took a friend to lunch near the university where she works. We didn’t receive our ticket so we went up to the counter to see if we could pay without the ticket. The cashier was very sweet and said she could take our money without the ticket but the guy who was sitting next to us (one of the professors in my friend’s department) had already paid for us.
Coming back from the wonderful PASIC Conference in NYC this past weekend, I volunteered my seat after the first flight and agreed to fly to Chicago and then to my home airport. On that last flight, my seatmate was a young engineer from Montreal who was going to a meeting. As we talked, he mentioned his route and the woman on the other side realized he’d be traveling on the turnpike. We asked if he had U.S. money to pay the toll and he said he planned to get his Canadian money exchanged at the airport – except our airport shuts down everything early evening that isn’t arrivals or baggage claims.
I didn’t have a lot of cash left from my travels but the mom in me knew I couldn’t let him drive off in the dark, in a strange location, without some cash. I dug around in my purse and pockets and found enough dollars so that he could get to his location and trusted someone would help him get back. On my drive home, I kept thinking that must be the reason I made the switch on the seats, to be there for him like the professor was there for us.
A few years ago, we once got a buy-one-adult ticket, get-a-child-ticket free deal at Universal Studios. But since our second child was only a year old, he didn’t need a ticket at all.
I hated the idea of wasting the ticket, so at the entrance gate, I just walked up to a big family and gave our extra child’s ticket to them. It was probably worth $50 or $60 to them but was totally worthless to us. But it made me so happy to do something nice for a stranger.
Stranded at a WDC airport because of weather, a complete stranger let me stay with her at her condo. She took me home ( a lovely condo in Georgetown, BTW), let me sleep in her spare room, gave me everything I needed for the night (this was to be a day trip so I hadn’t packed anything), fed me breakfast the next day and got me back to the airport (she was traveling on the same plane). Besides my profuse thanks, I sent her a large plant for her apartment, a basket of fruit and a bouquet of flowers. I didn’t know what else to do to thank her for her generosity—and her trust.
She didn’t know me (I didn’t know her either but I was confident I was a good judge of people) and yet she opened her home to me. She took a chance and saved me from a nightmare of being alone and abandoned in an airport that was closing down for the night.
Unfortunately, I lost track of her after a time. But I think of her often when I need a reminder of the goodness of ordinary people. And I try to live up to her standard.
I even did a blog on this called the Kindness of Strangers which you can check out at http://www.annecarrole.blogspot.com
OK. I too don’t often let anyone know what I do. A friend of mine has an autistic son who really needed some structure for the summer. My friend was really worried they wouldn’t be able to afford it and hoped the reduced rate based on their income would help. I called the camp and made arrangements for an additional “scholarship” so that her weekly fee came down to $15. The director and I came up with some story about a local business making a donation and lo and behold they pulled her son’s name out of the hat. She would be horrified if she knew I paid for it. So she won’t.