Im in the mood for some nice stories! Share your stories where some stranger showed you a random kindness asking nothing in return.
My story happened a few years back. I had broken down on a long stretch of rt.7 in VA. Now there aren’t many empty spots on rt 7 anymore, but 8 years ago it was pretty lonely. It was 9-10pm and I was sitting on the side of the road for a good half-hour watching a few cars pass, but nobody stopped.
Its strange to think about it now since pretty much everyone has cell phones, but of course then, I didnt. Finally a beat up old pickup truck pulls over, needless to say I was a bit apprehensive, especially when a large very “country” looking man gets out and walks over to me.
After going thru my story, and him checking out my car, he offers to give me a ride to the nearest pay phone which was about 5 miles up the road. Nervously I agree and walk to the truck. In the truck was his wife, who was very pregnant! They were both extremely nice and apparently had just broken down a few days ago and knew what it was to wait forever for someone to stop and help!
They drove me to the pay phone where I called a friend, then offered and did, drive me back to my car to wait. They hung around chatting with me for about 30mins until my friend showed up. I offered to pay for their gas, buy a dinner, anything. But they wouldnt hear of it, they were just glad to help and wished me a good night and left.
I know it seems a simple thing, but truly it was just one of the nicest things to me. And it truly showed you can never judge a book by its cover!!
When I was 19 I was working as a security guard Ow stop hitting me! One of my posts was at a upcoming luxury housing tract. They were opening the models later than they had announced, and it was my job to turn people away and tell them to come back next week (also basic patrol stuff - one of the decorators of the models had loaned out his Leica camera as a prop amongst other things, so I was to keep an eye out).
I got caught one day in a rainstorm. In May. In Southern California. No jacket, no umbrella. I was huddled under the freshly planted saplings and waiting to leave for the day. An SUV pulls up and the usual query about the houses and whatnot, I answer questions. About 20 minutes later same SUV comes up and a woman inside handed me an umbrella and a Godiva hot chocolate from my coffeeshop hangout about a mile away. And that was the day my faith in Humanity was restored (I took a lot of crap on that job).
I went on a short backpacking trip with a friend a few summers ago. After a few days camping it up, we returned to his car to find that it would not start. We were about 12 miles from a paved road, and about 20 from anything major, but we were out of food, so we left everything but the water pump and canteens at the car and started walking.
After a few hours and a few more miles, we spotted a truck, and flagged it down. The folks (a couple in their late 50’s) gave us a ride out and let us use their phone to call our families. They gave us food, and he then drove us back to our car and jumped it and (after it died twice more on the way out), followed us all the way back to the highway. This took him about 4 hours total. All we had asked for was a ride out to the main road where we could call a tow truck. He volunteered everything else.
I can tell you of several that happened when I was hitch-hiking to Vancouver from Ontario in the summer of 1976. But I’ll stick to one.
My friend and I were stuck, I think it might have been in Salmon Arm, BC. We’d been there all day without getting a ride. About 6 PM it started to rain. Soon, a car stopped, and the man motioned to us to get in. He said he’d been by the spot where we were several times with his wife, but she didn’t want to pick anybody up. But it was raining, and getting dark out, and we weren’t going to get a ride. So he took us home. His wife had made us a huge meal. We filled up, and after dinner, his wife said we could have a nice hot shower, and she offered to do our laundry! She gave us each a bathrobe to wear, and she washed our clothes. The man had a couple of guitars, so we had a bit of a jam session and a beer or four. They made a place for us to sleep. In the morning, there was another huge breakfast waiting for us. When it was over, and we were all clean, the man drove us about 40 miles out on the Trans-Canada Highway. As we were getting out of his car, he gave us each $20, and wouldn’t hear of taking it back, despite our protests. This was clearly above and beyond the call, and we gave him our most profuse thanks, many times over.
About 8 years ago back when I lived in Salt Lake City, I was taking a city bus home from work one day. This was very shortly after my divorce and I was feeling kind of sad (e.g. sorry for myself). When the bus got to my stop, I got up but before I could leave, this man sitting at the front of the bus stopped me and gave me a really sweet smile, told me he bought some flowers for a girl, but she didn’t want them. He told me it seemed a shame for them to go to waste and since I looked so sad he thought maybe they’d make me smile. They really did. But the best part was that it served as an attitude adjustment. Here this guy just had his heart trampled on, but instead of acting all sorry for himself (like me) he saw that someone else needed a kind word. I really took that to heart. To this day I think that’s one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me.