The other day I’m at my friends house. We’re just sitting in the living room talking about this and that. His six year old daughter is sitting on the floor by the coffee table immersed in her coloring book.
Also sitting on the coffee table was a couple of DVDs. I happened to notice one of them was Fog Horn Leg Horn. I said to her: “Is that Fog Horn Leg Horn? Man, I love Fog Horn Leg Horn.” Her response was “Meh”.
Anyway, FF a couple of hours later I’m heading out the door, saying my good byes, this little girl is pulling at my shirt tail, trying to get my attention. I look down and she’s got that DVD in her hand. She says to me: “Here, you can have this.” I of course told her no I couldn’t take that. She then says “But if you love him you should have him.”
I still didn’t take it, but still, she was very sweet. Either that or she doesn’t really care for FHLH.
My mom lives alone in Blizzardia. If either of these women has kids who live far away I feel confident saying they are also grateful to you. My mom has a generous neighbor with a snow blower. She is grateful. My sister and I are doubly grateful (and our mom is only 68.)
By the time I get to the window, they have already ordered at the box.
Where are you located? Do you have a minion we can use for schlepping stuff around?
Last winter my husband and I were sitting at an outdoor table at a coffee shop when a beat-up old Chevy van rear-ended a brand new Porsche. “Oh crap” we thought (can’t imagine what the Chevy driver was thinking). The two drivers got out, inspected the vehicles and saw no damage, shook hands and drove away. A waiting taxi driver who had seen the whole thing yelled “GOOD MAN!”
It was just nice that the Porsche driver wasn’t a crazy douchebag about his car.
An elderly neighbor a few doors down always brings my trash & recycling bins (and that of my next-door neighbor) back from the curbs if we’re not home. I was incredibly grateful for this once my husband was hospitalized and I was spending all my time at work or at the ICU; it was nice to come home late at night, in the dark, and see that my curb was clear.
My god, I wish you didn’t live on the other side of the friggin’ continent from me …
After a couple flat tyres in a two week span of time I got tired of using the flimsy jack that came with my truck so a bought one that is a small version of what they use in a tyre shoplike this one. Quick and easy.
Now whenever I see someone on the side of the road with a flat I stop and can change their tyre faster than they could get their jack set up. Or better, frequently I am hauling around a scuba tank with the necessary adapters to inflate a tyre. If their flat is just from a nail and can be plugged I will do the repair right on the side of the road and get them on their way.
Back when you still paid the toll for toll bridges around here with actual cash (as opposed to modern automatic detection equipment) there used to be a thing some people did of occasionally paying for not only themselves but the random stranger behind them in the line. When you were the beneficiary of this, it made you smile for the rest of the day.
Once, Mrs P was just finishing packing a huge trailer attached to our car for a camping expedition. I was still at work. Suddenly, our Cocker Spaniel puppy dashed out and ran up the street and was promptly tumbled by a car. Puppy yelped back home with cuts and scrapes and goodness knew what internal injuries, and Mrs P just had to rush her to the vet to check she was OK. But the car was parked awkwardly, she couldn’t back it out laden as it was, and couldn’t unhitch the trailer by herself. Two burly gorilla tradesman working nearby saw what had happened, strolled over without being asked, and bodily heaved the trailer off the tow bar, manhandled it up a hill and out of the way, and puppy was able to be rushed to the vet. Never got to properly thank them because they weren’t there when she returned. Puppy was (miraculously) fine - just some scratches and bruises.
One day this week I mistook an appointment at 1:30 pm for 1130 am. As a consequence i had nearly two hours to kill in a neighbourhood I don’t know very well and is pretty poor. It wasn’t exactly Hastings and Main, but rather poor none the less. I decided to go to McDonalds for a coffee and muffin and just read for a while to get out of the rain. I saw a woman standing outside, stop, count some coins, look away, she seemed to be working up the nerve to panhandle, but then stopped, looked back, counted her money.
I went out to her and asked if she wanted to eat. I ordered her a Big Mac meal, with fries and pop. She was so grateful, both to eat and to be out of the rain. She didn’t look like a regular panhandler, she seemed very lost and scared.
I had my youngest about 6 at the time in Target a while back doing some emergency shopping. She had a full on melt down, and I was trying really hard to get her back into the shopping cart seat so I could push her out to pay and get back to the car. Trying to put a kicking screaming autistic child into a cart is not easy. A couple of shoppers shot dirty looks for impacting their shopping experience.
One middle aged guy figured it out and held the cart steady without saying a word. I got my daughter in, thanked him, and was able to even pay and get us out of there.
