Thursday, April 16, 2015

Random Acts of Kindness...

I don't know about the rest of you, but I am tired of the cruelty of people toward others. News reports are filled with horror stories of death and destruction. It becomes very exhausting and disheartening to watch the news anymore. There has to be some heartwarming stories out there and today I was on the hunt to find some.

Here's what I found:

1. Pizza Delivery With Heart: This story could have gone horribly wrong for either of the people in it, but it turned out to be an amazing story of kindness. Sometimes pizza joints get special requests with their online pizza delivery ordering system (one woman asked them to write "I want a divorce" on her pie - they didn't), so they're used to getting requests. One pizza delivery guy showed his commitment to customer satisfaction. Pizza My Heart in Menlo Park, CA took an order that came with a special request: “Send us your cutest delivery boy. Tell me I'm pret.” Clearly, the customer ran out of characters to finish the instructions, but it's a no-brainer than they wanted to be told they were pretty.

Expecting to be greeted by a bunch of college girls when he delivered the insanely overpriced pizza, he instead encountered a room decorated for a birthday party, with only one woman in the room. The delivery boy reportedly wished the customer a happy birthday, and the girl told him how she had planned a party but nobody came. After a short conversation, she invited him in for some cake and the delivery guy ended up staying for an hour.

“We laughed and talked the whole time, as I was leaving I gave her a hug and told her she was pretty,” he said.

The only negative aspect of this story was that upon the delivery guy's return to the restaurant, he received a written warning for taking so long. But he says it didn’t matter as long as he made someone happy on their birthday. If only everyone was as nice as this guy.

2. A Good Chick-Fil-A Story: I'll be perfectly honest, I will not patronize Chick-Fil-A restaurants due to the company's religious beliefs and their CEO's antiquated same-sex marriage views. I just cannot abide giving money to bigots, but when I heard a story about a Chick-Fil-A team in Raleigh, NC, it warmed my heart.

Sheree Carter started working at Chick-Fil-A in October. At the time, she was living in shelters and temporary housing with her two young children and working hard to get family back on their feet after the loss of Ms. Carter's parents and her children's father. The family finally got an opportunity to move into their own apartment just before Christmas. Knowing how hard Carter had been struggling, her co-workers banded together and chipped in to fully furnish the apartment (including a dishwasher) as a surprise gift to the family.

Carter was overwhelmed by their generosity, as she didn't even think they knew that she was homeless because she never showed it. While I still will not step my big toe across the threshold of any Chick-Fil-A, it's nice to know that there are still people out there doing what they can for others.

3. Mystery Man Pulls Driver From SUV: Yesterday, in Idaho, an unidentified man may have saved the life of 23-year-old driver, whose 2000 GMC Yukon was heading south at approximately 8 a.m. when it left the road, drove through a yard and over two terraces before getting snared in a chain-link fence that prevented it from crashing into the canyon.

"As the Yukon's front end hung over the canyon's sheer edge, the man appeared, broke the vehicle's passenger-side window with a rock and removed Sitko [the driver] by dragging him through the opening" (AP story). The rescuer left the scene as the police arrived, stating that he had to go and then left.

Who this man is remains a mystery, but kudos to him for saving the life of a complete stranger!

-------------

These three stories restore a little bit of my faith in humanity, although I still think for the most part people are assholes to each other, but it's nice to know that there is still some kindness out there. Here's one of the songs that I find inspiring for promoting kindness:

2 comments:

Tom said...

Since the Chick Fil A owner died, I've relaxed my ban. From time to time, I will have a Chick Fil A sandwich.

Sandi said...

Yeah, the owner died, but it was his son (who is now the CEO) who made the negative same-sex marriage comments. Fuck him and his company.