| Good Deed Doer |
[May. 14th, 2008|09:40 pm] |
Last week I did a good deed. I was leaving work with John, a coworker, and, while we were leaving the building we spotted a woman walking back toward the building. "Aren't you going the wrong way?" John asked. The woman (Kaitlyn) answered that she was walking back to find someone with jumper cables. "I have jumper cables", I said. So she pointed out where her car was and, while she walked to it, John and I went to fetch my car.
Kaitlyn's car was a Toyota hybrid and it had a teeny tiny battery. It was used to start the small gas engine in the car (the fuel cell or batteries for the electric motor were in the back somewhere under the seats). The car was a 2003 model so it's not surprising that the battery was no-good: it's a 5-year battery and it reached the end of it's normal life.
John and I hooked up the cables and Kaitlyn started up the car easily. I told here to drive around for at least twenty minutes or to give the battery a chance to fully charge. We also discussed that it was time to replace the battery. She had over 80,000 miles on the car. Wow! After only five years. I was impressed (my car has 180,000 miles on it but it took 16 years to reach that). She said she lived in California for three years. That makes sense.
We unhooked the cables and closed the hood of Kaitlyn's car. John went to his car and I drove off in mine leaving Kaitlyn while she was talking on her cell phone (probably to tell her sweetie that she was going to be late). Altogether it took ten minutes of my time. That felt good.
I bought those cables for purely selfish reasons: they replaced an older set I used several times on my first car, which had problems starting. That first car was a Mazda Mizer and it wasn't doing all that great as it got older. I probably only needed the old jumper cables two or three times but the lessons were burned into my brain. When I bought my first new car (a Plymouth Sundance) I transferred the cables to the new car. After a couple years, the old cables broke and I replaced them with a new set. Last week was the very first time I ever used the new cables. I don't regret that investment one bit. :)
I felt particularly good about this good deed because I was finally able to pay back a good deed a stranger gave me four years ago. In 2004 I bought 13 yards of landscaping in order to Xeriscape my back yard. Company policy dictated that they dump the rocks in the street in front of my house. They can't put the rocks in my driveway because it might crack the concrete driveway (13 yards of rock weighs a LOT). After they dumped the rocks I started hauling them back, one wheelbarrow at a time. I figured it would take about 90 loads to finish the job and, at the rate I was going, it would take 8 or 9 hours to do the job: 4 hours that evening and the rest the next morning (they delivered the rocks late in the afternoon).
After about two hours, this guy shows up in a van with his preteen son and takes a wheelbarrow and a couple shovels out of his van. He told me that he just wanted to help out. I offered him something to drink but he wasn't interested. His son grabbed a shovel and helped load the wheelbarrows. Together we worked for about 90 minutes until it started raining. I thanked the man and his son and they took off. This guy was much more physically fit than me and was able to fill and push his loads at a much quicker rate. I figured he completed 20-25 loads in that time compared to my paltry 10-12. Although his help was brief, he saved me at least two or three hours work. Due to the rain, I was only able to work 2 and a half hours that night. If it wasn't for that man's help, I would have spent all the next morning and some of the afternoon completing the job. Instead I spent slightly less than 4 hours on it the next morning.
While the guy and his son were filling his wheelbarrow, the son asked why they were doing this. The father answered "Sometimes you perform a good deed for a stranger and you hope that stranger will pay it forward by helping another stranger with a good deed." Last week I felt like I finally paid it forward. |
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| Comments: |
"So shines a good deed in a weary world."
It is indeed a good feeling to be able to help someone out. Especially when all that is expected in return is that the assisted person carries on the kindness and helps someone else down the road. :) Good on you, sir! | |
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