Three Good Samaritans and a Jerk....

Yesterday I was on my way home from school on my bicycle, turning a 5-mile trip into a 25-mile one. On Friday the 13th, no less!

I was approaching the major highway that I have to cross in order to get home, always an adventure crossing that bad boy. That has nothing to do with this post.

I saw a car ahead of me, coming toward me and turning left across the lane. Only it stopped moving. It was apparent the driver was having some difficulty. A car had just passed me, and I could tell the driver was either unaware of the car across the road or didn't care. I was concerned about how long he had the opportunity to see the car, yet he was not reacting in any of the expected ways: braking, swerving, stopping, maybe even SLOWING DOWN? At the very last moment he swerved around the car and HONKED THE HORN. Like someone would CHOOSE to be in that position.

When I got to the disabled car, I realized it was a woman, and she was trying to push the car out of the road.

"Hang on, I'll help you," I yelled. I noticed she had a young child (or two) in the car. Her car was smoking, and the driveway was just enough uphill that she couldn't push it by herself. Even with two of us, it was a struggle.

Another car stopped, driven by a young girl, presumably a high school student. (I'm not profiling here. The words "Seniors 2012" and "Your beautiful" were painted on the windows of her car. I almost told her she needed to correct her friends' punctuation if they were going to paint on her car, but I decided it wasn't the time for it.) She also got out of her car to help, even if it did take her so long to park and get out that we pretty much had the situation in hand.

A truck coming from the same direction I had come from also stopped. A man got out (mid- to late-twenties, I'm guessing) with a tag on his shirt that said "Visitor." He said, "I don't know how much help I'll be."

Seriously, dude? Two women, a slip of a girl, and you wonder if you can be of assistance?

Luckily for the woman, it was HER driveway she was trying to turn into, so once we got the car out of the road, our job was done. Even with three (and a half) of us pushing, it was still dicey getting it completely out of the road. It was just enough of an uphill that there was a danger of the car rolling back on us, but we managed it. She said something about calling her husband, and we all went on our separate ways.

A few cars had backed up in both directions, and it made me laugh to think of how our Good Samaritan crew must have looked: A teenager in a tank top and jeans who probably weighs  87 pounds; a slender man wearing a "Visitor" tag; and a middle-aged woman in spandex, cycling shoes (made it difficult to get a purchase on the pavement), and a bicycling helmet.

At least if the car HAD rolled backward on me, the helmet might have protected my head. The rest of my vital organs were on their own.

I know it isn't nice, but I was wishing all sorts of bad karma on the guy who honked his horn at her. Two strong men in that car, but a teenaged girl and I were the first ones to stop and help.

Hmph.

Not What I Was Going to Write About....

It seems I have a number of blog topics with some variation of that title. Sometimes I struggle to find something to write about that isn't just another version of "what I did today and why I'm grumpy." Other days, like today, I have a blog topic all thought-out and written in my mind, and all I have to do is type it. That was the case today, and I almost wrote my blog topic at school, but I have just enough morals to feel that isn't right, so I didn't. Okay, moral. One.

Then something happened that forced me to preempt tonight's topic. And it wasn't the incident in the parking lot where I get my hair cut, where I was crossing the parking lot and almost got run over by a businessman screeching through the parking lot. Going the wrong way. In reverse. (Good thing they took my blood pressure at the blood drive BEFORE this little incident, because I'm pretty sure they would have been checking their equipment for malfunctions.)

Hubby and I went to a steakhouse for dinner in a nearby town (since our town doesn't HAVE a steakhouse). I didn't really have an appetite, since I was still trembling from the incident in the parking lot. It is impossible for me to tell you how close he really came to hitting me. Close enough that he felt compelled to come back, enter the salon, and apologize. He left with his ears burning and his tail tucked between his legs. The adrenaline was flowing, folks. I could have set a personal best on my bicycle, if I'd had it with me.

I wasn't crazy about the idea of going out to eat, and I didn't want to drive that far. But Hubby said I could drive his new car, and it DID mean I wouldn't have to cook on a Friday night, so we went.

I ordered rainbow trout, something I've never had before in my life. That has absolutely nothing to do with this blog post. (For the record, I prefer salmon.) When we were finished eating, the waitress approached our table. She looked kind of sheepish.

"Someone in this restaurant," she said, "is paying for your meal."

Hubby didn't hear what she said at first, so I repeated it. He looked around, I made a joke to the waitress about it being impossible because we don't HAVE any friends (at least that aren't too cheap to pay for our dinner), and she said, "Nope, it's this table. He said table #55, and that is your table."

Hubby went to the bathroom so he could glance around the crowded restaurant, and I saw the transaction take place while he was gone. The family at a table near ours got a check even though they had just received their food, and I saw the woman cut her eyes over toward our table. I made sure I didn't make eye contact with her, but I was trying to see if I knew them. We were near a town where I used to teach, and I thought it might be possible that a former student was buying our dinner.

Then the waitress returned and murmured to me that this man has done this before. He comes in the restaurant, chooses a table, and pays for the whole meal. I wanted to tell him "thank you," but the waitress said I shouldn't, that he wanted to remain anonymous.

We were grateful for the free meal, but it gave us a strange feeling. I told Hubby that it was a wonderful thing to do, and I appreciate people's random acts of kindness as much as the next person, but I almost wish the man had paid for a meal for a family that couldn't afford it. Missing the point COMPLETELY, Hubby said people who can't afford it don't come to a steakhouse.

I don't mean that to sound like I'm ungrateful. It was a totally cool thing to happen, particularly after almost being murdered by vehicle AND finding the road home closed due to some repairs, necessitating a left turn in evening traffic onto one of the worst roads in our town.

All by itself, that little act tipped the barometer of this day from "leaning toward sucky" all the way over to "almost impossibly cool."

I understand the concept of paying it forward and random acts of kindness, and believe me when I say I fully intend to pay it forward. And not just because random acts of kindness are on my 50 Things to Do list.

I still wanted to say "thanks."

#23 - Random Acts of Kindness.....

I feel awkward talking about random acts of kindness. If you publish them, they aren't really random anymore. This one wasn't all that random anyway, since it wasn't something I did for a perfect stranger. But it's been a while since I ticked anything off my 50 Things to Do list, so I'm by golly counting it.

Hubby's great-niece is a very sweet girl who just started high school in our county. She couldn't wait for school to start back, unlike most teenagers. She loves school, she loves reading, and she loves learning. She was born the day Princess Diana died, and she has a brother almost 10 years younger than she. Yes, I realize those two things have nothing to do with one another. In addition, they now have another youngster in the household since this unfortunate incident, so she gets called on a lot to babysit.

She told my mother-in-law the other day that she didn't have any money to eat lunch at school. I realize teenagers are prone to exaggeration (and outright lying, if you can believe that), but I don't get the impression that this girl would resort to that. It wasn't like she was trying to extort money from her great-grandmother, and she's not one to play the sympathy card. Both her parents work, but they haven't always managed their money well. (Who has?)

It didn't bother me so much that she said she didn't have lunch money. It was the fact that her daddy, Hubby's nephew, spent Sunday afternoon at the golf course. Playing a round of golf probably cost him around $70. That would buy her school lunches for more than a month.

What is WRONG with people?

I sent a check to her school via a co-worker, and I emailed her English teacher asking her to tell the girl that her lunch account would have money on it starting tomorrow. I don't want her to know where the money came from, but I realize there may be too many people involved to keep it a secret forever. I don't care. I don't want her to have to go all day without eating lunch.

Maybe it doesn't fit the true definition of random acts of kindness, but I felt better for having done it.