I’m still puzzled over what happened to me yesterday. While driving thru my neighborhood, I noticed a shopping cart rolling backwards down the street. As it got closer, I noticed that there was a small child (about 2 years old, I assume) in it and a mother/caregiver chasing after it. The street I was driving up had a slight grade, and I knew that if I didn’t try to stop the shopping cart, it would quickly speed up and more than likely go speeding thru a busy intersection at the bottom of the hill.
There was little time for me to think, but I decided that I should position my car in front of the cart (which was about 20 feet in front of me) and let it bump into my car. If I had time to get out of my car and run out and stop it myself I would have. So, it worked. The shopping cart bumped pretty hard into my front bumper (my car was completely stopped at the time of impact, I made sure of that), scaring the hell out of the child, but he was unhurt.
As I was getting out of my car to assist the child, the mother/caregiver caught up with the baby and gave me the dirtiest look and said me “what that fuck are you doing?” . Well, I was in shock at her display. The child would certainly have been seriously injured and possibly killed if I had not intervened. Mom grabbed the child out of the cart and stormed back down the street with the screaming child in tow.
I thought that maybe the mother was in shock and embarrassed that she put her child in such danger and was taking it out on me.
I actually thought about reporting the lady to CPS. I didn’t know her name, but I do know where she lives.
Sounds to me like she thought her child could have been injured by the impact with your car. Never mind how hurt he would have been if the cart had kept going…
Yeah, people can be…shortsighted, to be charitable, sometimes.
Still, you did a good deed, so my hat’s off to you. I’ve learned a long time ago, sadly, to never expect gratitude for any good deed, regardless of size. The upside is that you feel that much better when you do receive some gratitude. (It also helps make you that much more alert to the small favors people do for you, and react accordingly, so that’s good too.)
Also, she might have been worried that you’d hold her responsible for any damage done to your car by the runaway cart.
I’ll bet she’s kicking herself for responding so poorly.
I have one too. My daughter and her boyfriend lived (rent-free) in a house I owned for about three years. I sold the house, and now they’re paying rent to a landlord. She told me once, “I wish you wouldn’t have done that. We got too used to having extra money and now we’re broke all the time.” Sometimes ya just gotta laugh.
What** Gozu Tashoya **said. You done good. And there is that cynical saying that no good deed goes unpunished.
Along the same lines, I was at a park or some such place with a sloping lawn that led to a small lake, and I stopped a toddler who was running hell-bent-for-leather toward it. No adult in sight. I walked the toddler back up the slope and found a group of people picnicking. The toddler belonged to them. I’m not even sure they were aware the kid had run off, much less in a frame of mind to express gratitude that someone prevented the kid from taking a headlong plunge into a lake.
I’m a hold-the-door-open-for-people-approaching kind of guy. And it never ceases to amaze me, the number of people who don’t acknowledge my friendly deed, and who just walk on through like I’m their paid doorman or something.
I took someone else’s dog to the vet while they were out of town. He was sick; vomiting and defecating in the house. That was really unlike him and they made him stay outside for it. They were going to give him away because of it. I spent $135 on the vet and medicine for him. He got better so they decided to keep him. Not only did I not get my money back, I didn’t even get a thanks. Hell, I would have taken the dog since they were looking for a new home for him. He was a really good boy. He died of cancer while I was overseas.
One time I was sitting on a friend’s porch, relaxing, chatting, and having some brews. We noticed a chihauhau had wandered onto the very busy street and was frantically dodging traffic. A friend and I managed to grab the dog before he got flattened, checked his collar and saw that he lived at the house across the street. We knocked on the door, which was ajar (probably how he got out) and explained that the dog had wandered into the road. We got a dirty look for thanks.
Oh yeah- worst part. Not 30 minutes later the kids from that house were playing in the front yard unsupervised, and the toddler rode his tricycle straight into the street too. Luckily his older sister grabbed him, because even though half the people on our porch were making a mad dash across the street, we wouldn’t have made it in time- there was a huge truck bearing down on him.
I was out on a date a few years back at a Chinese restaurant in Windsor, Ontario. The pair of ladies in the table sitting behind me were getting up to leave and roll of 20’s fell out of one of their purses so I pick it up and attempt to return it.
First the lady refuses to believe it’s her money (I know it is, I physically watched it fall out) then after a minute of me assuring her it is, she accuses me of attempting to steal it. Hello, I’m going out of my way to return it that, to me, seems to be the exact opposite of stealing.
I’ve had “good deeds” foisted on me that I didn’t appreciate. Namely the rearranging of my furniture (including my sock-and-underwear drawer) by two of my female relatives, while I was on medical bedrest and couldn’t see it or prevent it. (This ‘help’ also included stuffing random objects (including at least one dirty plate) into boxes and hiding them in closets, to be found up to 4 years later. The most recent box located had 3 unmatched shoes. I had thrown their mates away after 2 years of being unable to find these shoes.)
When I protested this invasion of my territory, I was angrily told “We worked really hard!”
Now I am being told they want to help again. They mean well, but gah.
Similar to Chotii’s story, my parents unpacked all my stuff and organized my room for me, which I did not want and did not appreciate. Especially since I can’t find the one and only porn DVD I ever owned, and it was a little bit of an embarrassing one. (Nothing all that kinky, but OTOH not the kind of thing that parents are supposed to know about their offspring.) The worst part? I didn’t even like it that much.
I wouldn’t take the woman’s actions too personally. She was probably pumped full of adrenaline from seeing her kid in danger, and just lashed out at the nearest convenient target, which happened to be you.
That wouldn’t have stopped me from shouting, “Saving your child’s life, bitch!” if I’d been in the same situation, but really, odds are she wasn’t thinking too clearly at that precise moment.
I had a roommate with a series of dodgy boyfriends, one of whom basically ran her car into the ground.
Since we worked at the same place, it was assumed I’d drive her. Not a problem at all. I’m going that way anyway. Nope, don’t give me gas money, that’s just silly.
Her shift began at 4:30. Mine began at 5:00.
She would hog the bathroom til 4:15.
She began bitching to co-workers and managers that I was making her late.
I came onto a scene that still troubles me; twin girls, about three years old, playing in the median of a four lane road. Traffic had been stopped in both directions by the local sheriffs department while a deputy got the kids out of the ditch; I knew approximately where the kids lived and I led the deputy there. The sheriffs department did a door to door search and found the father drunk and passed out on the sofa—the front door was open and he was in clear sight. He caught a lot of grief from the deputies about it and blamed me for not minding my own business.
I posted a thread here a few weeks ago about how I saw a dog who was tied up too tightly outside a store. My friend and I warned the owner who was inside who basically told us that everything was fine and then to leave the dog alone when we conitnued to hover. I had expected many thanks for pointing this out, but I guess it was not to be.
I think that people don’t like the implication that they’re bad parents/pet-owners and that’s what causes them to lash out, in a lot of cases.
Must be. I found a dog once in the middle of a busy road, looking confused. I had seen him several times on different days just wandering about, but this time he damn near got hit by a car, so I apprehended him. He was a very nice but dumb dog who seemed lost, so I called the number on his tag. Hours later, I got a call back from the owner, who was in a fraternity which was a couple of miles away from where I found the dog.
When I brought back the dog, I told the guy where the dog was, how he was in the road in jeopardy of being run over, and how I’d seen him on several occasions, so this was a habitual thing for him to be loose in the streets. Letting your dog run around is illegal, not to mention the dog was sans registration and rabies tags. Unfortunately, this was in the frat house, and he was with a bunch of his frat brothers, so not only did he not thank me for saving his dog and returning him, but they proceeded to make lewd sexual come-ons, be incredibly rude, and make me feel like it was a mistake to bring the dog back to them at all. I left feeling very pissed off and disgusted with them.
The next time I found the dog (and there was a next time), I brought him to the SPCA. I know there’s a fine for having a loose dog without tags, and I doubt he propositioned or tried to grab the ass of the dog control officer he had to deal with when he went to get his errant dog… who I now think maybe was just trying to escape his asshole owner. Poor doggie.
Nasty winter late afternoon, a woman was pushing a stroller along the street, a fairly busy street, because the sidewalks were covered with ice and snow. Right before I drove past, I saw the baby kick of one of his boots.
I could feel how annoyed that woman would be to arrive home and notice the missing boot, so I tooted the horn and signaled as I drove past her. I glanced in the rear view mirror, to see her giving me the dirtiest look …
I just knew she thought I was beeping because she was walking in the street, and I had just made her night doubly miserable. She would get home cranky because some jerk had beeped at her when she couldn’t walk on the sidewalk becasue some other jerk wouldn’t shovel the snow, and then find baby had lost a new boot when it was too dark to go find it, …
So I backed up, found the boot, and followed her around the corner down to right in front of her house.
The look of panic on her face when she saw me pull up. I guess she thought I was following her to … I don’t know, yell at her or something. She thanked me, but that wasn’t the most successful good deed ever.
I had the same thing. I found an appointment book in the train, called the number and told the guy that I would be leaving it at the stations “lost and found”. The guy was all like: " I don’t know what you’re trying to sell me, lady".
People just hate to be helped when they don’t feel they have a problem (yet).
Working in a shop people expect me to be a bastard salesman; pushy, lying and unhelpful.
Of course this isn’t the 1980s so I’m not but do the customers realise that even after I’ve helped them?
Nope. Well sometimes. But mostly they’re defensive and think I’m just after their money.
I must have fixed a thousand little bugs and glitches on their phones, and resolved just as many billing queries, even for people who didn’t buy their original product from us.
Most of the time they act like it’s my job and I should be glad they honoured my shop with their issues. It never occurs to some people that I’m actually doing them a favour and most other shops would give them a customer service phone number and send them on their way.
