The kindness of strangers

Idril Celebrindal

Idril Celebrindal

Tol Eressea
My older son and I were running errands on Saturday afternoon when my car broke down in the middle of a busy intersection. We sat with the blinkers on as I tried to get the car going (no luck), then frantically dug through my purse for my cell phone (missing) as traffic swerved around us.

I expected people to honk and yell at us. What I didn't expect was the outpouring of help. Within a couple of minutes, a guy pulled up beside us and asked if he could do anything. Stu let me borrow his cell phone to call AAA and my husband. Several other people stopped to offer assistance while I was on the phone. Stu then helped my son push the car over to a gas station on the corner. At the gas station, a woman asked if we had run out of gas and offered the use of her discount card. And after towing the car to my mechanic, the tow truck driver was kind enough to give me a lift home.

There's a real undercurrent of anger and mean-spiritedness in America these days. Sometimes it seems like half of the population is ready to throttle the other half. But none of that was on display on Saturday. People went out of their way to offer aid to a complete stranger. Maybe there's some hope for us as a society after all.

My wallet may be quite a bit lighter, but so is my spirit.
 
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Maybe there's some hope for us as a society after all.
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Maybe there is. It would be nice to think so.

Sometimes I wonder if the percentage of angry, unyielding, unreasonable people in the world is equal to the percentage of attention they get.

I can remember one year when I drove to the neighborhood movie theater near me to buy advance tickets to the LOTR trilogy showing. It was snowing terribly and the roads were awful but I didn't have far to go so I went. After I parked and was trudging through the 6 inches of snow to the theater door, I passed a woman walking on the sidewalk. I went in, chatted a bit with the ticket seller, bought my ticket and left the theater. That's when I saw the woman standing at the bus stop. The weather was awful. Just awful. And I used to have to take a bus and knew what a chore it was in times like this. I approached her and all but insisted I give her a ride somewhere. It turned out she was going to a pharmacy on a major city street so I drove her up there and let her find a bus from that location home. It turned out, a lot of buses got stuck that night and the theater is not on a main route at all. So I'm especially glad I was able to do this for her.

I don't give rides to people very often! I think this is the only time I did. I did stop to offer a ride to a woman walking - clearly some distance since she was not anywhere near a house at that point - in bitter cold temps with a baby in one arm and a shopping bag from a hospital in another. Unfortunately she did not speak English and did *not* want to get into my van. It taught me that what seems like an act of kindness by a potential giver is not always so easily received by a stranger who has not solicited that help. :-)

But still, moments present themselves when I am in a position to make an offer and I'm always happy when it does.
 
and not in jersey at rush hour.

No, that is an amazing string of kindnesses. I believe that you just may have deserved a bit of assistance on the karma scale because you know the saying, what goes around, comes around:).

So what exactly happened to your car? I bet it was an electronic senser gizmo.
 
Nah... it was obviously gremlins
or those diminutive elves who are irritated with us for insisting elves are greater in stature [tongue]
 
Sometimes I wonder if the percentage of angry, unyielding, unreasonable people in the world is equal to the percentage of attention they get.
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It's really a case of the squeaky wheel gets the grease. The news would have us thinking that all of the important things going on in the world are the scary, upsetting, horrific things. Not that those things aren't important, but all the wonderful, good things people do for each other out of common kindness (and I say common not because it's of less value, but because we all have a capacity for it) get overlooked.

Thank goodness people still do give a bleeping bleep about each other. We deserve to feel like we can have some faith in each other.
 
I think some personalities are more prone to just pushing their point over and over and over again and other personalities are happy to make their opinion known once and leave it at that. It's my observation that those that one side of that equation is less happy with things than the other. So... the side that keeps pushing their point starts to sound like 'everyone' ... as in 'everyone thinks ____' because those that think differently are just not harping on it.

It's easy to see, in this scenario, why the media might dip into a topic and think they have a bead on popular opinion. But all they have is a bead on the opinion of the most vocal people in that sampling.
 
I'd stopped at the light, and couldn't put the car into gear. Initially I thought the clutch had gone bad, but it turned out that the left ball joint on the front axle had suddenly failed. And yes, I had good car trouble karma in this as well as in the offers of help -- the car broke down fairly close to home in a spot where it could easily be pushed out of the line of traffic. Maybe all those times I let other drivers merge into my lane have paid off in a little karma jackpot.

I've had my share of problems with the little electronic sensor gizmos, but usually it's not catastrophic when they die. I'm starting to think they're part of a grand conspiracy by the car industry to sell more replacement parts and keep auto repair shops in business! [laugh]
 
One day my sister and I ran into Wal-Mart and when we went to check out there was some bird seed left by the person in front of us. I hadn't paid much attention but, I told my sister "We need to look for an older lady because I bettcha that's who left it.". So we raced out to the parking lot looking around looking for a older lady and sure enough we go up to a woman putting stuff in her car. I asked her if she had gotten this bird seed and she had.[laugh]

I felt bad about stereotyping like that but, it worked! Can't complain.[cool]
 
from you two, good deduction, fast thinking and quick feets, not to mention very fine regard.

I am very proud of you. You did good:).
 
I generally show my driver's license to them. Not that it logically makes any difference, but it seems reassuring.

My trouble is usually that I have so much in the front seat that I need some time to make room for my guests.
 
... but it is good to remember that those in the news reporting world are often chasing after their next Pulitzer. Reporting on rescue dogs isn't as exciting as a report about death and devastation in the latest country to be fighting terrorists, dictators, and the like.

I've learned to be the squeaky wheel for good. And often, when you're the squeaky wheel for good, you get told you're asking too much. I still try though, because those of us who want to do things to make the world a better place should be noticed and seen.
 
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