The kindness of strangers
My faith in humanity has been (temporarily) restored.
Perhaps it's a Christmas 'good will to all men' thing but yesterday two small gestures really made my day.
Firstly, I was returning to my car in the dungeon car park where it lives during daylight hours. As I never, EVER, have enough change to feed the meter for an entire day, I usually have to make at least one return journey during the day to top-up the meter.
As I approached the money-hungry machine, I could see a small ticket, carefully stuck to the facade of the machine. The ticket still had three hours to run before it expired.
Rather than simply scrunch the ticket into a ball and toss it into the passenger footwell, someone, a very thoughtful and generous someone, left the ticket behind for someone to make use of.
I go three hours for nothing!
What an unselfish act, I thought, as I walked the short distance to the underground station. I had only a short distance to travel to run a lunchtime errand and so decided to travel by tube, rather than risk losing my parking space for the rest of the afternoon.
Then it happened, again.
As I was entering the station, I pulled out my wallet and began scrambling for enough money to buy a ticket. Just as I pulled out a note, I was approached by an elderly gentleman.
"Excuse me," he said, in an elderly gentlemanly kind of way, "but are you going to use the tube?"
"Er.... yes," I said, bracing myself to repel a ninja-style attack by the old geezer.
"You may as well have this, then. It's an All Day pass and I won't be using it again today. Go on, it'll save you two quid."
I took it from him and continued with my journey. I was gobsmacked. I use up most of my oxygen quota complaining about how selfish and cynical society has become and then this happens - TWO thoughtful acts within the space of five minutes.
People. How great are they?
Perhaps it's a Christmas 'good will to all men' thing but yesterday two small gestures really made my day.
Firstly, I was returning to my car in the dungeon car park where it lives during daylight hours. As I never, EVER, have enough change to feed the meter for an entire day, I usually have to make at least one return journey during the day to top-up the meter.
As I approached the money-hungry machine, I could see a small ticket, carefully stuck to the facade of the machine. The ticket still had three hours to run before it expired.
Rather than simply scrunch the ticket into a ball and toss it into the passenger footwell, someone, a very thoughtful and generous someone, left the ticket behind for someone to make use of.
I go three hours for nothing!
What an unselfish act, I thought, as I walked the short distance to the underground station. I had only a short distance to travel to run a lunchtime errand and so decided to travel by tube, rather than risk losing my parking space for the rest of the afternoon.
Then it happened, again.
As I was entering the station, I pulled out my wallet and began scrambling for enough money to buy a ticket. Just as I pulled out a note, I was approached by an elderly gentleman.
"Excuse me," he said, in an elderly gentlemanly kind of way, "but are you going to use the tube?"
"Er.... yes," I said, bracing myself to repel a ninja-style attack by the old geezer.
"You may as well have this, then. It's an All Day pass and I won't be using it again today. Go on, it'll save you two quid."
I took it from him and continued with my journey. I was gobsmacked. I use up most of my oxygen quota complaining about how selfish and cynical society has become and then this happens - TWO thoughtful acts within the space of five minutes.
People. How great are they?
posted by St8rk at
9:54 pm
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