A bit over a year ago, I went out for a walk in my neighborhood, where there are no sidewalks. It had been raining, and I stepped on a rock in the gutter, and it was like stepping on a marble. I lost my balance and fell forward. It knocked the wind out of me, and my face hit the curb. Fortunately, I’d managed to throw my head back enough as it hit that I didn’t break anything–just got some scrapes and a small cut.
I nearly passed out, but managed to pull myself out of the street and onto the grass. Then I just lay there on my back, hoping to recover enough to walk back home. I had the vague awareness of a mini-van driving past, but wasn’t able to indicate I needed help. A minute later, they had turned around and came back to check on me.
The man and his wife took me home, and I really appreciated it. With my health problems, I could have passed out if I’d tried to stand up and walk too soon, but I was feeling quite vulnerable lying alone on the side of the road waiting to recover enough to safely walk again. I’m sure I would have coped if they hadn’t stopped, but I was so grateful that they did. By stopping, they helped take away the fear I was feeling, not only about what had just happened, but about future walks.
One Saturday, shortly after my family moved to Florida, my mom suggested that we check out a shopping mall in another county. We were 20 miles away from home when Mom’s minivan broke down (IIRC, the engine threw a rod). This was in a largely undeveloped area in the days before cell phones. We figured our only option was to start walking back home and hope that we found a pay phone along the way.
We’d walked for about a mile when a car pulled over to the side of the road. The woman behind the wheel asked if we needed a ride. Mom explained that we lived some distance away, but the woman told us it was no problem. She drove about 15 miles out of her way to make sure that my mom, my sister and I got home safely.
To the wonderful woman who gave us a lift on U.S. 19 back in 1991 – thank you.
I was in Florida (just started a new job) but Ivylad was still living in South Carolina, I drove up there with the kidlets to visit him. Yep, I got a flat tire.
I guess the sight of a woman walking down the side of the road with a (then) 5 year old and a (then) 8 year old triggers the Knight in Shining Armour instinct, because I don’t think I got more than 10 feet away from the car before two very nice men stopped and put on my spare for me so I could make it to the next exit and get the tire fixed.
My SIL once told me we are all angels at one time or another.
Lavender Falcon, that’s a really heartwarming story. There have been a few times where I have come pretty close to taking a faceplant or in some way seriously injuring myself and I’ve always wondered if I could rely on a stranger to help me if I actually did.
These stories have all really brightened an otherwise dull winter day. I wish I had more to add, but I am eternally grateful for all the times when I’ve been helped in the past by strangers.
Most of the time, it stems from how forgetful I can be with things. Not too long ago, I was coming home from a trip to Tokyo and was rushing to buy my tickets for the trip back home. Navigating the vending machine screens to buy all the little express tickets I needed to get back can take a few minutes, so I set my wallet beside me on the counter while I picked out my train schedule and seat numbers. The next train to get me started on my journey was leaving in only a few minutes, so I had to book it across the station if I were to catch it (and consequently be on time for my transfers). Numbskull that I am, I snatch my tickets out of the machine and dash off without my wallet. That wallet has just about everything. It had about 200 dollars worth of cash, credit cards, bank cards, and my foreign registration card (without which I am royally screwed). The next guy in line sees it, and takes off after me, shouting. I finally realize he’s talking to me, stop, turn around, and see him holding my wallet in the air, across the throng of commuters. I sheepishly run back and thanked the bajeezus out of the man who gave up his place in the long, slow-moving line just to save my stupid behind.
I have no idea what I would have done if I had gone back home (3 hours and 100 dollars) without it. That guy is my hero.
I’m happy to report that recently I have been able to pay it forward twice by chasing after people who have left their bank cards in the ATM at our local branch. One of whom I had to chase down while she was driving off. I’m sure I looked like a crazed man, chasing after a van, screaming with a bank card in the air.
Thanks
I like that advice. seems like a small but significant way to help. The banks (I imagine) will have generics to keep the real cost down, but a few name brand items can make it seem civilized.
Next time we run a food drive, I will recommend this as an option.
That’s a wee bit on the side of ostentatious, but if anybody deserves it, Waffle House waitresses do. They are the glue that holds civilized society together and don’t ever get nearly enough credit for it.
I try to give stuff like brownie mix and other “fun” foods when I give to the local food pantry (in addition to the peanut butter and tuna etc). I figure just because you’re poor doesn’t mean you don’t get warm brownies.
Years ago I was living and working in Richmond, Virginia. We had a snowstorm that amounted to like eight inches of snow and a ton of ice.
The whole city stopped dead. They didn’t know what to do with weather like that. No snow removal for days, right? But I had to get to work because yes, our office was open.
I sure as hell wasn’t gonna try and drive in that mess. So I decided to walk from my house to the nearest bus line, which was about a mile and a half. I’m all bundled up, sludging down the road when this old car pulls up beside me.
There was an old dude inside. He was dressed well, right down to a nice muffler and old-fashioned fedora.
“Young lady,” he goes in a thick German accent. “May I give you a ride?”
I was thinking about all the stuff my folks had always told me about getting into cars with strange men. But I thought, well, he’s an old dude so if he gives me any crap I can deal. Also I hate winter and I hate being cold and it was a hell of a walk.
I got in the car and we started to talk. It turned out that the guy was an old Nazi who had fought in the war against the Allies. Seriously, he was telling me about this stuff without rancor or viciousness or anything. He was just telling me about Germany and the war and why the German people supported the Nazi Party.
Man, that was weird. But interesting too. And I got to work okay. I’ll never forget that. My friends at work joked for a long time about that. Their theory was that the dude felt guilty so he was driving around every day looking for good deeds to perform.
I don’t really have anything significant to contribute, but this happened last summer. Having been motoring around in the MGB, I stopped into The C-Shop, an old-fashioned candy store and café for a treat. Three adolescent girls wanted to buy some candies and they were pooling their funds. They didn’t have enough American money, so they asked if the shop accepted Canadian. It doesn’t. Doing some quick math, I gave them a couple of dollars. I asked if that would be enough, and the girl behind the counter winked at me and told me it would be; the implication being that it would be even if it wasn’t. I think I gave them enough, but I don’t know since I left.
This past December, I wound up in the hospital for emergency surgery and a week and a half in the hospital. When I was dismissed, I still wasn’t ready to be sent home, so I was released to a rehab center for a couple more weeks instead.
It was somewhat on the depressing side, as the center was in the midst of transitioning from a nursing home to a theraputic rehabilitation facility and not really accustomed yet to patients who were not geriatric. And, after all, it was the holidays.
About a week before Christmas, a church group came in to carol and distribute gift bags to the patients. The bags contained basic toiletries, including some good lip balm and body lotion (an Ogsend, as anyone who has ever spent time in a place like that can attest to) and a teddy bear.
Now, I’ve never been someone who has been attatched to things like stuffed animals, but somehow or another, that teddy bear became a comfort to me until I was ready to go home. In addition to the gifts, the members made time to personally visit with many of us, asking if there was anything they could do for us and not having issue with those of us who are non-believers . One of them brought in a small radio for me to use until I left, when I said that I missed my music. That meant a lot to a total stranger.
During my stay, the activities director also gave me access to her office in the off hours so that I could have internet access…something that helped me to stay connected to the outside world and while away the hours that friends and family weren’t able to be there.
These folks reminded me that there are some pretty good people in the world.
A couple years ago I was working in Switzerland and living in France; at one point I had very bad hip pain but all the doctors at the ER (only time I’ve been to the ER for myself so far and I’m 40) could tell me was “it’s muscular, take paracetamol” - I might as well have been taking candy. There was a tram that went from my office to the border, then I had to walk a couple blocks to my house.
One of the first days after the pain started, an old man pushing a bike along with his arm in a cast adressed me in French saying that he saw I was in a lot of pain and maybe I should see a doctor, and did I want some of his ibuprofen, maybe it would help? Noticing his aksent I answered in Spanish and we chatted all the way to my house, which normally would have taken me a couple minutes but at the speed I was walking was more like fifteen. He didn’t fix my hips, but he sure made my day
(The pain was caused by the not-really-so-ergonomic superexpensive chair at work; once I pinpointed it, all I had to do was exchange it for one of the not-officially-ergonomic chairs we kept for visitors)
After dropping out of graduate school with an MS, I got a job in Miami Beach and moved from a room in South Miami to a studio in North Miami. Being very short on available cash (I had some savings but they were invested), I rented a bed for the first month and figured I’d buy one with my first paycheck. At work, the woman who managed my purchasing requests was, I guess, in her 60s; the first time I had to send her something I took it in person, introduced myself and, seeing pictures of two very-similar-looking boys in what seemed to be Bar-Mitzvah attire, asked “is this your grandson?” pointing to the colored picture (I just intended to make polite conversation and this is a great starter with Spanish grandmas). Let me tell you, people in that company who complained about what a bitch that woman was don’t know the first thing about grandmother psychology! Jewish grandmas work exactly the same way as Spanish ones She told me there was another Spaniard in the company and arranged for an introduction.
And the other Spaniard turned out to have a bed they didn’t want any more and had been meaning to give away… I carried the matress in my car (smaller), he brought the frame. Yay for Jewish grandmas and coworkers who have beds to give away!
I love these stories. They really help to remind me that most folks really are decent.
I don’t have many stories, and none as significant as what I’ve read here. Recently, I had a waiter chase me out of the restaurant to give me my doggy bag that I’d left on the table. What a sweetie!
This seems kind of stupid, but I have fun doing it. You know the finding-a-heads-up-penny-means-good-luck thing? When I see a penny on the ground, I leave it. If it’s tails up, I turn it over so that whoever finds it will feel lucky.
The giving is absolutely worth something, even if it isn’t hard! I’ll give you an example: I’m 5’8". The town I live in has a high proportion of elderly/retired/handicapped people. Whenever I’m in the grocery store or somewhere like that, I keep my eye out for people in wheelchairs or electric scooters, or maybe just hunched over little old ladies, who are trying fruitlessly to reach the stuff on the upper shelves, and I offer to reach things for them. It’s really no effort on my part, so it’s not hard for me. But it certainly seems worth something to them.
A few months ago, we got our first Krispy Kreme store here, so once the initial queues had died down, I went in to buy a mixed dozen for the family. While I was waiting to pay, I noticed the woman behind me scrabbling in her wallet trying to find small change for her one donut (all she had was the equivalent of about US$50). I just told the cashier to add the cost of her one donut to my dozen. He looked at me like I was a crazy lady, but the woman behind me just beamed at me! Random act of kindness for the day - check!
I was homeless in NYC and my SOP was to find enough change for coffee, go into a cafeteria style place, use the bathroom to wash up, get coffee and then take a plate with unfinished food on it. I’d go outside, sit on a bench and eat it.
One day as I was eating a stranger put down a large bag and walked away. It had coffee, a large breakfast plate and two sandwiches in it. I hadn’t had that much food in weeks.
A few months later, I had a room but was living poor. One freezing cold day I stopped in a fast food place to get a small coffee and warm up. I was so cold and hungry and was literally shaking. The owner of the place gave me a large coffee and a breakfast meal for free.
I had a flat tire once, and as I pulled over, the guy directly behind me pulled over as well to change it for me.
Another time, my hood flew up as I was driving and the wind caused the metal to buckle before I could pull over. A guy stopped and tried to wallop it back into shape well enough to get it closed. He wasn’t able, but he got it into sufficient shape that I could drive the few blocks back home.
I once lost my PDA phone in a parking lot. It apparently fell out of the holster when I was getting out of or into my car. That had all kinds of contacts, passwords, music, etc saved on it. I noticed it was gone when I got home, and my husband and I immediately jumped back in the car to retrace our steps. Meanwhile, I tried calling it from my husband’s phone. Someone picked up! I said “You found my phone!” and then he hung up on me. Fuck! Someone found it and decided he doesn’t want to give it back! Asshole! But then my husband’s phone started ringing. It was him! He didn’t mean to hang up, he just couldn’t figure out how to use my PDA and hung up on accident! We met up at the McDonald’s he was at and he gave me my precious back. I paid for his lunch in thanks.
A while back I went to get some snacks from a vending machine, and noticed it already had a credit of 10 cents. It was only a dime, but hey, I got my chips for 10 cents cheaper. It made my day just a wee bit brighter. Ever since then, if I’m getting something from a vending machine and I have a nickle or dime left over, I always put it in the machine in the hopes that it will cheer someone up like that 10 cents cheered me up.
Many years ago, I was driving a clunker of a car and the alternator went out while I was driving. I managed to pull over to the side of the road, called Hallgirl1 to come from Philadelphia (about 2 hours away), and we went to get the part to replace it. I barely had enough money for the part, and absolutely no money to pay someone to fix it, so we were on our own with the repair book, our limited tools and the part for the car.
We had managed to make some headway, when we ran into trouble getting the old part off. We simply could not get it off. Keep in mind that the car is parked on the side of the road.
All of the sudden, a woman pulls over and asks if we need help. She hadn’t been the first person to pull over, but no one else was able (or willing) to help remove the alternator from under the hood of my car. When I told her we were replacing the alternator, she mentioned that her husband was following her in their truck, and sure enough, he pulled over when she did. (They had met up at a local place, then were going home.)
Although he wasn’t a mechanic (he was a computer administrator at a company downtown), he helped get the part off, then stayed and put the new part back on (following the directions in the book we had!). Afterwards, he jumped the battery on the car (old alternator had drained it) so I could drive it.
For years, we sent them Christmas cards every year, until I lost their address. I’ll never forget them though.
Several years ago, we took our daughter to the local park to join in the annual Easter egg hunt. Our daughter has autism, doesn’t speak and often misses a lot of things, including social cues. We did our best to explain, and try to help her, but when the bell rang, all the other kids scrabbled around and snatched up all the eggs. Our daughter was still happy and excited to have been included.
Then a tiny little girl ran up. She couldn’t have been four years old. She looked in our daughter’s basket and after seeing no eggs inside, she put four of her plastic eggs into the empty basket. I was so grateful for the generosity of this young lady. She ran away before I could see her who her parents were, but I hope my and my daughter’s smile showed them how much this gesture meant to us.
