What's the kindest thing a stranger has done for you?

Give me directions whenever I’m lost.

Strangers have likely done extremely generous things that benefitted me that I will never know about.

I thought it was sweet. I was in line at a Tim Horton’s (Canadian coffee shop chain) drive-thru. There was one car ahead of me, and once they were done, I went up to the window to pay and get my coffee. It was an older couple in the car in front of me, and they decided to pay for my order, as well. I thought “How nice”. We ended up turning down the same street and stopped beside each other at an intersection. I asked them “why they paid for my order” and, they said that they “just wanted to do something nice for someone else”. =)

I recall several instances from a bike trip a friend and I took across Europe almost 30 years ago. We must have been a pretty pitiful sight, because so many people took us under their wings in various ways. Here’s just one example:

Leaving Lisbon, we had to cross the enormous Rio Tejo. When we got to the huge suspension bridge, there was a sign prohibiting bicycles but, having no alternative, we decided to risk crossing it anyway. About a third of the way across, a cop pulled us over. We couldn’t understand him, but he was clearly intent on giving us hell. Then this little truck pulled over, and a guy got out and started talking to the cop. The discussion got a bit heated, and finally the guy gestured to us to throw our bikes in the back of the truck and climb in. With the cop still barking behind us, he drove us across the bridge and a few miles beyond, just to be safe.

The one time that sticks out the most was when I was younger I slid on some gravel in the road and crashed my moped. Some nice guy pulled right over to help me. He got my knee to stop bleeding and put my moped in his trunk and drove me back to my house. He was really there for me and I thanked him profusely for his help but never got his name.

I was in Miami (over an hours drive from my home) at a doctors appointment, a specialist, for something that was very upsetting. I came out of the office down to my car and my car would not start. A gentleman in a beaten old van who was parked two cars away saw me and tried to give me a jump. In FL when your bettery dies it’s dead…usually jumping doesn’t work, and it didn’t this time. I was in an unfamiliar area, upset from my appointment, and wanted to go home. This guy, by the way he was just a few years off the raft from Cuba, spoke only broken English, removed the battery from my car (he had tools in his car, must have been a fix it kind of guy) drove me half a mile to the Sears, we bought a battery and he placed it into my car….car started. He would not let me pay him, I tried.

There are good people everywhere.

@JLeslie awww….

Recently, my grandmother and I were walking down the slope of a levee when about halfway down she fell, rolled a few feet and stopped near the bottom. I was walking ahead of her when it happened. Within seconds there were four people there to help us. A woman who had stopped her car took my grandmother back to her house and the people who had come across the street took me and the dogs in their car and we followed them back. All of them stayed until my grandfather and the ambulance came (she had broken her ankle and it was swelling rapidly).

@jmah ! precious!
I’m sure there’s been countless things. One thing that sticks out in my mind was when I was about eight or nine and I was at the movie theater. I went to the concessions stand to buy some candy and I was dime short. This long haired teenager paid for what I lacked. I will never forget that.

A ran out of gas on a highway in Arizona- in July. There are no call boxes on the roads in AZ and I didn’t have a celly on me. What I did have with me was my small longhair dog and I really worried to leave him with the car while I walked to the next highway offramp in search of gas. It was only a mile away but with the time on foot there and back, I was sure he’d die so I wrapped him in a towel and carried him with me. At the gas station was a family in a minivan who watched me soak my dog and his towel in water and start back with my small plastic gas can, they drove up and offered to drive me back to my car even though it meant going out of their way and I looked like a vagrant wearing only bike shorts, a dirty tee short and flip flops.

@peyton_farquhar similar to your story I will tell a story for my Grandma Irene. She fell walking accross the street at 55 and 3rd in NYC. Two women helped her up and brought her into a store on the corner. The shop owner called the ambulance and the women waited with her until the ambulance arrived. I hate when people say NYer are rude and don’t care…it is so not true. She had fractured her hip.

These are great stories to read. :)

I’ve experienced acts of kindness from total strangers many times. Once when I ran out of gas, someone stopped and gave me a ride to work. Another time, I had my two boys (infant and toddler at the time) out shopping and got a flat tire. A man came out of the store we stopped in front of, changed my tire, and refused to accept any payment. I found out he was the manager of the store and later sent him a gift certificate to a restaurant as a way of saying thanks. Another time, my friend and I were studying, eating, and drinking coffee late at night in a little diner near school. An older man sitting a few tables away paid our bill and insisted the waitress not tell us until he’d left. He told her we reminded him of his kids who were away at college.

Then, there are little things that still make an impression. The other day, a woman at the grocery store came up to me in the checkout lane and handed me a coupon for $2 off my order. This afternoon, I had my kids at a local park where someone was cutting the grass with a big tractor. He sort of drove over to where we were walking and waved at me. I was expecting a reminder to keep my kids away from where he was working or a suggestion to leave the area until he was done. Instead, he turned off the mower so we could hear him and said, “If you walk a little over that way, you’ll see a HUGE redtail hawk perched on top of the gazebo!” We got a great look at that beautiful bird and thanked him profusely for sharing something we otherwise would have missed!

Once I was skipping school on foot and in the mid-way I encountered some guys riding in a car screaming at me calling me names, I gave them the finger. Then all of the sudden they backed up and came out to beat me up, ... some stranger noticed them from his car them pushing me aroud and came for my help,...they split.
I believe it was my angel.

i had just started college in philadelphia, and had to take the subway train by myself to 30th street station in center city phili. Being on the subway at night, i was very nervous (being just a small and vulnerable college girl). i ended up taking the wrong train and found myself lost in chinatown! i was so afraid to ask for help, but an older lady must have noticed my confused expression because she asked if i needed help. she ended up taking me back on the train and went with me all the way back toward the 30th street station subway stop. i was very thankful, and was surprised that she was just so willing to leave her destination, pay for another subway token, and take me where i needed to go. :)

giving me some lurve – but that has not happened yet

anyone out there feeling like giving lurve today?!? drat. i think everyone just left.

(referring to my above reply) whoa! somebody gave me luuuuurve…thank you, kind stranger.

@watdat – congratulations! =)