The Kindness of Strangers

I had to get gas on my way to work today so I stopped at the Esso on Victoria Park and Danforth. It was snowing and cold.

Source:the happyhospitalist.blogspot.com

I couldn't open the gas door on my Nissan Juke, it was iced over and stuck somehow.

A very kind gentleman in a BMW was putting gas in his car beside me. You know what he did? Before he drove off, he went into his car, walked over where I was, showed me his Swiss Army knife, and said: "Here, use this. But you do it, cause I don't want to scratch your car."

I was about to take the Swiss Army Knife from him, but he proceeded to scrape off the ice under the gas door, asked me to try and open the latch again, no luck, he tapped twice on the door, then voila - open sesame.

This interaction did not take more than five minutes. I thanked him profusely and gave him a hug.

When I am down (like I have been for the past few weeks), I tend to look at the world in a jaded way. This random act of kindness reminds me that there is a lot of good out there. 

Like one of my co-workers, who (today) brought me his Christmas turkey dinner he cooked, with all the fixings, so I can have it for lunch tomorrow. And Greggy, who warmed up my car and cleaned the snow off it before I went to work. Or Jo, who always goes over the allotted time during my shiatsu treatment to make sure I feel better before I leave (and she even feeds me with all sorts of healthy goodies). And my mom, who reminded me that I wasn't exactly a bowl of cherries at 17.

Thank you Mr. BMW. I owe you more than you know.