When I got up this morning, I still wasn't really sure which way the day was going to go. Good? Bad? Or one of those forgettable, middle of the road days where you look back two weeks later and can't remember anything remarkable about it, not even what you had for lunch.
So I walked in to the coffee shop yesterday afternoon, craving my vanilla latte (I am such an addict!) It was going to be my special treat, a little indulgence that I could have even now, when money is tight and time even tighter. I had already ordered when I saw the handwritten sign taped to the cash register that said "Sorry, credit card machine is down. Cash only."
Stifling my interior whiner (and she can be SO loud) I stopped the clerk before she started fixing my drinks, apologized and said I'd have to skip the drinks as I didn't have any cash with me. One of the drawbacks about blogging for a living is that my cash, what there is, is almost always spoken for. Groceries, major utility bills, unexpected and yet somehow regular emergencies, etc. When I buy a treat it is often funded by my PayPal MasterCard where my blogging money goes. There's almost never much there after bills are paid, but it's my secret stash - sometimes only $2, sometimes as much as $10, that I can dip into now and again.
I turned to go when a woman just ahead of me in line picking up her order stopped me. "Let me buy your drinks today," she said pulling out a $20. I was... I don't know what I was. I stammered something about no, it was ok, really, I'd just come back later, the coffees weren't a big deal - which I think she and I both knew was a lie, the coffees were a very big deal at that moment. I'd been looking forward to this one stupid little thing all day as I worked, and scrimped and generally muddled through, and now I felt it slipping away again, I'd just have to do without - when she did the most amazing thing.
She put a hand on my arm and said "Let someone else be good to YOU for a change. Accept a random act of kindness." It took a moment to sink in, and suddenly I realized I was being a martyr. I was also not being selfless, I was being selfish; depriving this person of the opportunity to do something good for someone else... and feel good about HERSELF for the rest of the day. I accepted and thanked her (I hope graciously - I was still so stunned by the whole thing) and as she climbed into her white SUV and drove away I realized I didn't even know her name.
Neither, it turned out, did the barista. "Not a regular," she said. She had slipped a package of chocolate covered coffee beans in my unknown benefactor's bag, and she too seemed surprised and touched by the act. I took my latte outside, climbed in the car, sipped my drink and thought - thank you God, thank you universe, and thank you to the unknown woman who saw somehow that i needed that moment, driving right now on some highway in her white SUV. Thank you - for all those little random acts of kindness.
