<p>Atomom’s story on the “Is this the new etiquette” thread (post #37) was really getting me down, until I started thinking about all of the NICE things that acquaintances and even TOTAL STRANGERS have done for me over the years. I thought it would be nice to share these kinds of stories. (Sorry if this is a duplicate thread). </p>
<p>I’ll start.</p>
<p>Several months ago, I was at a gas station far from home, and VERY far from my starting destination, when I realized that I had somehow lost my purse. I knew I didn’t have enough gas to get home, and my mind was racing about what to do. I got back in my car, and started scrounging around under the car mats looking for loose change. </p>
<p>I must have had a panicked look on my face, because a woman came over and asked me if everything was okay. I told her the story, and she insisted on filling my tank for me. After thanking her profusely, I asked for her business card or address so that I could reimburse her, and she refused to give it to me. She wouldn’t even tell me her name. She merely said, “Just do the same thing for someone else when you get a chance.”</p>
<p>I was truly blown away. I’d love to hear other stories.</p>
<p>A nun told me that she was at CostCo and had a shopping cart full of food for the monastery and someone came up to her at checkout and paid for the entire cart, $330.</p>
<p>Man, hops_scout, I hadn’t heard that song before and now I’m getting all weepy. (I think it’s starting to hit me that my daughter really is leaving home in the Fall and everything’s making me feel a little weepy these days.)</p>
<p>nottelling, it had been a long time since I had heard the song but when I read your post, I had to go find it. Couldn’t remember the name of it, but just started typing into google and it came up :)</p>
<p>This fall, I was at a grocery store picking up a few things for my mother’s birthday. I had taken the bus there but was expecting a ride home. However, he got held up and I ended up waiting in front of the store for some time. </p>
<p>While I was waiting, a nicely dressed gentleman, looking to be in his 50s, was walking past with a huge bouquet of flowers. He began to pass me, stopped, and said, “Today is my wife’s 50th birthday. But I don’t think she’ll miss this,” and handed me a beautiful orange flower from the bouquet. I don’t know what possessed him to stop, but it was a really sweet gesture and I gave the flower to my mom along with the stuff that I was picking up at the store. </p>
<p>I feel the need to add that I am not really a pretty girl. I’m short, overweight and on this particular day was also poorly dressed and somewhat disheveled. I guess I just looked like I needed a flower for some reason. :)</p>
<p>I have to thank various unknown Irish people for being so honest and helpful when D1 lost her wallet not once, but twice (due entirely to carelessness), and left her camera in the bus, and all the other mishaps she had that she didn’t even tell me about, and for buying her story that her luggage was overweight because she got caught in the rain, and not charging her for it. Maybe she didn’t learn her lesson properly, but she learned an even better lesson about humanity.</p>
<p>An older woman who lives in our city stopped her car in the pouring rain to help my large yellow Lab, who had escaped when the wind blew open our gate. He was running up the middle of a rather busy street, happy as a clam but in a lot of danger. She pulled over, coaxed him into her car, muddy feet and fur and all, read his tag and drove to my house. I had been driving on our local streets, looking frantically, but when I pulled back into our driveway, there they were.
I was able to play the good deed forward just last week when a Golden
was running free along the path my Lab and I were walking. Her owner didn’t even know she was gone when we returned her. In both cases, I met new neighbors.</p>
<p>A story that relates to the “new etiquette” thread you referred to, nottelling, but sort of the opposite of the parents who were not stepping up. My future DIL and seven of her girlfriends were having lunch in a restaurant near the beach two weeks ago. It was a high-school reunion of sorts, as they were all in town at the same time and decided to catch up.
While they were there, they ran into the parents of one of their guy friends that they also went to school with, Mr. and Mrs. Brown*, and exchanged greetings.
When the girls went to pay the bill, their waiter told them that The Browns had already covered it for them. Sweet.</p>
<p>greenwitch, we have a similar travelling-lost-stuff story. We were in LAX, and had stopped at an ATM. We were about to go through security so D was carrying her passport. For reasons that aren’t clear, she put the passport down on an adjacent shelf, which I didn’t notice as I punched ATM buttons. I got my cash, and we left. A minute or two later, we heard a voice far behind us yelling “Miss! Missssss!!!” We turned, and saw a young man barreling toward us, waving her passport overhead.</p>
<p>Y’all should watch Pay It Forward, it’s a great, albeit incredibly sad, film about good deeds and how they can change people’s lives. </p>
<p>A friend was out for Valentine’s Day with his girlfriend when an older couple walked up to their table, gave them a rose, and told them the meal was on them. The man then said he wished them as much happiness as they had hen they were younger. My friend still talks about how that made his night.</p>
<p>My S has had his phone sent back to him numerous times, and his wallet returned twice–one time found in the road, the other time found in NYC, Port Authority! That time, the woman looked up the phone number that went with the address, called, and arranged for us to meet her when she took the next bus, luckily to the same place (our town), S was heading. She did give him a little talk about being more careful, though! (which I applauded.)</p>
<p>S1 lost his wallet in a very busy crowded university hangout area…the street with all the bars/restaurants/shops etc. It was not his university town. He was visiting friends for the weekend at their school …about an hour away from S1’s university. </p>
<p>He realized that his wallet was gone hours after the fact. He gave it up for gone and headed back to his college.<br>
The next day I got a phone call from the NROTC(S1 was on NROTC scholarship) office at S1’s school. A young lady had found S1’s wallet with all contents still inside.
She went to the trouble to go online and find the phone number of the NROTC office at S1’s univ. She called S1’s NROTC office because of his military ID in the wallet.<br>
The NROTC secretary could not reach S1 so she called me to let us know the wallet was found.</p>
<p>Got in touch w/ S1 who called the young lady that found the wallet. It turned out she was headed to S1’s university that night to visit her BF. So S1 met her just a couple of miles from his house and got his wallet back!</p>
<p>Many thanks to the young lady who found the wallet,went to the trouble to track S1 down and delivered it back to him and to the kind NROTC secretary who called me when she could not get in touch with S1.</p>
<p>A woman I know has been fighting breast cancer and a friend had arranged to have a pizza delivered to her house. That day a huge blizzard pounded us and the woman called the pizza place and told them not to come as she lived out in the country and her driveway wasn’t plowed. Pizza man said that it was no problem and he would still come. Well, he came and plowed out her driveway. Guess where we get our pizza from now?</p>
<p>I dropped my purse outside my car right before I went into the gym. I had no idea I had done so. When I got back to my car, there was a message on my cell phone from a FedEx delivery guy who said he had found the purse and that he had taken it to a nearby restaurant for safe-keeping. I picked it up right away, and nothing was missing.</p>
<p>While taking graduation photos at our botanical garden, my son left behind his football jersey. The high school got a call from a man who found it and they were able to track down my son through the # on the jersey. The man who found it was a firefighter and I picked it up at a fire station.</p>
<p>Struggling through the Paris Metro with all Ds, and my things at the end of her semester abroad, I had a number of busy staircases to negotiate. Twice, folks came from behind, picked up the wheeled end of that rolling bag, and made my struggle up the stairs far lighter. No words exchanged, just a wave as they hurried off while I stammered, “merci”. </p>
<p>I continue to feel that while not effusive, the citizens of Paris are kind at heart, despite the public image.</p>
<p>Our car died once near Capitol Hill in DC late at night while the kids were very young. While we were waiting and waiting for AAA to come, a local man out walking his dog insisted that H and the girls go to his nearby apartment so the kids could use the bathroom and have a snack. He saved us a lot of grief! Thank you, anonymous DC man. The girls thought it all was a lark.</p>
<p>Yes, we were once called by a stranger in New Orleans, who had found my waist pack with my wallet & all my money & ID & CCs and was coming to the hotel where he left it with no way of thanking him, just told to please pay it forward.</p>
<p>Our kids have found many things, including tamigochis & other things which we have turned in much to the owners’ relief.</p>
<p>Years ago, our tenants lost their job, we gave them one month free rent if they moved out within a month. It helped tide them over and get together resources for them to move to be with the wife’s family while the husband went job hunting.</p>
<p>The family of a patient with COPD sent us a significant donation in his name because our organization is the only one in our state designed to serve and advocate for those with COPD.</p>