One of the top 5 nicest things anyone's ever done for me

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
41

This is nowhere near the kindness shown that most of these stories have, but I have a fun one and it’s a way to bump the thread and hopefully get some other contributions.

So the city that I’m originally from has a single A (as opposed to double or triple A for those not in the baseball know) baseball team. My best friend and I would routinely go to games cuz they were generally cheap and a fun time waster. They had a “thirsty thursday” special where hot dogs and beer were each a dollar.

So one time he and I were standing in line and a guy randomly came up to us and gave us his tickets for the game. The very next game he and I went to we were in line and he said “hey, remember the time we got free tickets? That would be awesome if that happened again”. Lo and behold a guy came up to us and gave us free tickets.

I just visited him this weekend (he recently moved) and we went to a minor league hockey game. We were standing in the ticket line…

“hey remember when we got those free tickets?” pause “remember when we were talking about getting free tickets…and then got free tickets?” After a bit of a laugh at that it wasn’t ten seconds later when a family walked behind us “hey do you guys need tickets?” we got free tickets again!!!

What luck huh? What nice people!

42

I had to go to the emergency room one night for intense pain in my back. It was a Saturday night and the hospital was packed. The waiting room was almost full.

The wait was long and the pain was getting so bad that it was making me sick to my stomach. It wasn’t long before I was filling the puke bag the nurse had given me. I could not move from my chair to go to the bathroom for some privacy. By the time my stomach was empty and the dry heaves had subsided, I looked around and I was the only one left in the room. Oh, I’ve never been so miserable. I really hate throwing up.

Anyway, a couple of minutes passed with me sitting there wishing I could get up to rinse my mouth out when a young man walked in and handed me a bottle of water that he had bought for me. It made me cry even harder than I already was. And I don’t even remember if I thanked him or not. I ended up in surgery the next day for a burst ovary. I’d lost half my blood.

To this day, I wish I could let that man know how much his gesture meant to me.

43

Okay, in order to bump this again, I’m gonna cross-post/double-post. I don’t remember the rules around here for that kind of behavior, but if there’s a penalty then impose it on my sister ‘cause it was really about her. Anyway, this one is relevant to both threads and the submission on MPSIMS about motorcycles (scooters) reminded me of this.

In the mid-70’s my sister and our friends were sitting around chatting about the holidays and something like “Are you gonna get a Christmas tree after next Thursday?” comes up. My sister notes casually that we always put up the same white plastic tree and we’ve never had a real one. Our friends note that the winter pine scent makes the whole season seem that much more special, but we shrug because we never knew any different than we’d seen.

The next Friday – Black Friday/The-day-after-Thanksgiving – there’s noise out in the front yard at 7 in the morning. I was planning to sleep in late, but drag myself out of bed to find Dave and Steve have pulled into the driveway on a mo-ped. It’s a 75cc automatic-shifting glorified bicycle with a long seat made for a driver and passenger. Dave is in front with his right hand on the throttle/brake; Steve is in back with his right arm wrapped around Dave’s waist. Their left arms are clinging to a seven-foot pine tree that they had carried 25 miles (on Surface streets, because Mo-Peds aren’t allowed on freeways) from the cut-your-own Xmas Tree lot down in the valley. They apologized for being late because the lot didn’t open until 6AM.

Mom and I marveled at the bravado and laughed about what they must have looked like zipping up the road with a horizontal pine tree slung on one side; my sister cried over the gesture.

After that, we got real trees every year – for ourselves.

—G!

Well, they call me The Breeze
I keep blowin’ down the road.

. Lynrd Skynrd
. Mr. Breeze

44

If I may be so bold as to suggest… maybe it’s time you gave out some free tickets of your own at these games?

45

I was returning home from a trip, having successfully negotiated planes, trains, taxis and buses around Germany, Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Austria. I was in London and catching a coach to Skegness, in the east of England. I showed the driver my ticket and he put my luggage in the hold, I asked the driver if it was OK I got a bottle of water from the nearby kiosk.
“You have 3 minutes.”
So I ran to the kiosk, got my water and ran back to the coach, bypassing the queue with a breathless “I’ve already given my luggage and just went to get a drink” to the people waiting to board.

I sat down, and started reading my book. We stopped after a couple hours at a service station for a break. I didn’t recognise it but hadn’t passed this was for a couple years so thought it must be a new one. After a couple more hours we went over a BIG bridge - I didn’t recognise that as well and started to worry. Then a saw a sign;
‘Welcome to Wales’.
??? :confused:
I asked the guy sitting next to me where he was going, to which he replied “Swansea”.
??? :confused:
“Oh, I’m going to Skegness … it’s an odd way to go there.”
“This coach doesn’t go to Skegness”.
“But … BUT MY LUGGAGE !!” :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: :o :o :o :o

Skegness and Swansea are over 200 miles apart.

I spoke to the drivers and, after they stopped laughing, they radioed ahead and said I could get a bus back to London later that night and I might be able to pick up my luggage there.

So I had 4 hours to kill in Swansea. I hung out at a cafe until it closed at 5, and found the only place with WiFi was the Theatre. I explained my predicament - no cell battery left (and the charger was in my luggage), no laptop battery left, no way to contact my family as there are no payphones left.

After they had a chuckle they let me sit in the restaurant, plug in my laptop (so I could use Skype), brought me over a coffee, then another coffee, then a lemonade, then a glass of water. All for free. :smiley: They reminded me 20 minutes before my coach to London was due to leave and pointed me to the exact location for the coach stop.

I had no ticket now, but the coach driver said “Oh you’re the one” while having a little chuckle and let me on for free. :smiley:

My sister picked up my luggage the next morning as my original coach was returning to London. I got to Skegness exactly 24 hours late and in need of some sleep.

46

The nicest thing anyone ever did for me was pick me up out of the snow last Christmas, after a bad fall, reassure me over and over that I would be fine and drive me to the doctors office. I was especially panicked because I was 25 weeks pregnant and terrified I had just hurt the baby in some way. As it turned out I’d only hurt myself (broken ankle) but I was oblivious to that at the time, I was in such a state about the little one. My biggest regret is that I never got the lady’s name. Whoever you are, I think about you a lot and I wish I could thank you in person.

On a lighter note the next thing that comes to mind is something I was given just before I got married. My bridesmaids got together and designed a keepsake for me in the style of a celebrity magazine I’ve been known to buy every now and again. Its full of pictures of my nearest & dearest, anecdotes in the form of articles, spoof headlines, lots of things about me and my husband and its so imaginative and funny. I really treasure it, much more than other technically more valuable things I own. It’s just brilliant.

47

When my father passed away suddenly back home in California, I was living in Atlanta. My employer at the time had an internal travel agency. I’m not sure if there is a single person I have to thank or many, but shortly after finding out from my mom on the phone in my cubicle, I was trying to find the first flight home through much sobbing and grief. The tickets were quite pricey even after a bereavement discount. Within about 30 minutes I got a call from the travel agency that they were working on giving me a standby ticket at no cost that they had on-hand for the suits that need to travel at the last minute.

48

That…is an AWESOME idea! I never thought of that!

Now I feel bad :frowning:

49

I’ve been keeping an eye out on Craigslist for free bricks. I want to do some work to garden beds in my yard, and free bricks are challening to come by. Last night, I saw an ad on Craiglist for free bricks (about 200 of them) and I was first to respond.

This afternoon, Hallboy and I went to get them. You may not realize how heavy brick can be, especially 200 of them, but they’re heavy. Very heavy. We put enough in the trunk of my car that it was weighed down. Still, we had about 1/3 of them remaining.

We were planning on making more trips home with the trunkful of bricks, but the lady who was giving them to us not only helped us load them into my car, but offered to bring the rest of them to my house in her SUV. We helped her load them into the back of her SUV, then she followed me to my house. She, Hallboy and I then unloaded the bricks from her SUV.

All for free. I’m so grateful and my mind is spinning on what I’m going to do with the bricks I have now. Really, this was great.

Oh, and later this afternoon, I was looking at the PILES of branches I had as a result of the freak snow storm we had on Halloween weekend and my neighbor offered to let us use his chipper to turn the piles of branches into piles of mulch for my garden!

It’s been an exciting and amazing day, filled with generous and amazing people.

50

Aw, don’t feel bad. Just return the Universe’s favor.

51

I wasn’t a popular girl in high school and didn’t date much but there was one particular boy I liked. Okay, totally crushed on, and I wasn’t the only one. We spent a little time together but he was a year older and we didn’t really run in the same circles.

Went on the week long high school ski trip to Colorado and on the third or fourth night we all sat down to dinner and there was a letter on my plate – from the cute, funny guy of my dreams. No one else got a letter. So awesomely special. But wait, there’s more.

As the bus is pulling back into the high school parking lot shortly before dawn, everyone starts looking out the bus windows to see if our rides have made it since we got in earlier than expected. A lone Ford Fairlane with frosted-over windows is there – and it belongs to him. And he’s waiting for me.

52

OMG for reals? Its like the end of “16 Candles.” Swoon.

I did think of another one. I was completely horse-mad as a child (and throughout life, but later I got to take lessons and own a horse - in the time I’m speaking of I was horse mad like only a little girl in the city can be horse mad.)

My dad had a friend who passed away. I had met him, I think, once at a work function of my dad’s. I don’t even remember it. The friend was very involved in riding and training horses. My father must have told him how much I was into horses and begged for lessons.

He left me all his horse books in his will.

It was several boxes full of breed encyclopedias, horse care manuals, and books about riding. I like to think I gave them the very best of homes, lovingly perused and at times know-it-all-ingly quoted. :slight_smile:

53

I was driving in Turkey with my mother and we were lost. We had directions to the hotel, but it was a big city, the exits didn’t match Google directions. Nothing matched the paper maps. And even if they had, three days of driving around had taught me that my mom, while a wonderful person in many, many ways, can’t read a map. And neither of us speak more than two words of Turkish, if that.

In desperation, I pulled over to a tollbooth, hoping that someone there might speak English or be able to draw a map or at least point us somewhat in the right direction. The first tollbooth guy couldn’t, but he went inside and conferred with his fellow workers, who kept telling us “wait” until one came out. He didn’t speak English either, but he got into the car and gestured for me to drive forward. So I did. He then pointed us all the way to our hotel, which turned out to be about 5 miles away. When we got there, we shook hands and then he disappeared into the crowd. I don’t know how he got back to work or home. It was an incredibly kind thing to do for total strangers. We were and are very grateful.

54

Yep. I still can’t believe it, and I teared up writing about it. (He drove a white Ford Falcon though, oops.) Such a cool guy and I doubt he ever knew how much it meant to me.

And I understand about the horse crazy thing, what an amazing windfall. “Know-it-all-ingly quoted” LOL!

55

I 'm loving the warm fuzzies in this thread. My USAF recruiter probably saved my life. I was a runaway street kid, things were ugly in my world. At that time, the only thing that mattered to me was my cat.

My recruiter encouraged me to take classes that would help me in the Air Force, he would give me food and when he learned that I was feeding the meat to my cat, he started giving me catfood.

When it was time for me to take my oath, I couldn’t. I had the choice between living on the streets with my cat, or giving my cat to a shelter. Cue total meltdown in public. Sgt. Groves and his wife took my cat into their home and after I got out of tech school, they drove all the way from south Calif to Denver Co. (a very long way for me) to bring my cat to me.

I was able to keep in touch with him, but I don’t know that I’ve ever told him that I’m old enough now to know what he did for me. It might be time for a snail mail letter…

56

I was just home from hospital with my first born baby and feeling totally overwhelmed. My baby wouldn’t sleep, I was tired and stressed and wondering what I had let myself in for. My next door neighbour, herself a fairly new mother - her baby was barely three months old, came over and took my bucket of dirty diapers, washed and dried them and returned them neatly folded. It was the nicest, most thoughtful gift anyone has ever given me. It did make me feel guilty that I hadn’t thought to do anything like that for her though.

57

I was in Minneapolis doing my internship at a theatre. 800 miles from every one of my friends and family. And I was staying in a house with a bunch of college students. The thing about theatre is our schedule is pretty booked. And the really huge times for us were nights and weekends. Some paperwork during the day, and at prep stuff at home, but mostly evenings and weekends. As such I tend to not hang out too much with other students because of our vastly different scedules unless I really put effort into it. Which sadly I often don’t think to do. I’d talk to them when I ran into them and we’d all say what was going on in our lives, but it wasn’t a strong relationship.

Anyway towards the latter half I was running sound and lights at a show. And I was actually really surprised, happy, and touched to have two of my housemates come to one of the performances, being really supportive and saying hi afterwards and talk about the show. Ever since i started doing tech instead of acting (since I was a child really with two exceptions) even my family doesn’t come to see shows I work on near home. It was really very nice and cool of them.

58

Similar story:
When I was getting divorced, I told my buddy that it was happening, and without letting me go another sentence, simply asked, “Where are you staying, and do you want to stay with us?” I didn’t even ask. It’s why he’s my best friend. He’s like that to everyone.