Random Acts Of Kindness

by hilzoy

BitchPhD, who is always worth reading, has a great post called: "Open letter to the woman working at the K-Mart snack bar":

"Thank you so much for your kindness. I was having a sh*tty day. First I had to pour my entire change jar into the CoinStar so I would have enough money to buy gas to get home. Then I was feeling incredibly stressed and anxious, no good reason, just the depression coming on again after a couple of days of exerting myself to be social and good company. So the fact that I was having to do an eight hour drive with a little kid and no money was feeling really scary to me, and when Pseudonymous Kid fell asleep I spent two hours sobbing while I drove. Then he woke up and I stopped, and then the car overheated, which is why I pulled off the road and ended up at your K-Mart.

So thanks for seeing me pulling out the $3 I had left in my pocket in order to buy Pseudonymous Kid, who was hungry after his nap, and hot, because our car doesn't have a/c, something to eat. And thanks for undercharging us so that I could afford to buy him a hot dog AND an icee. And thanks for telling us "not to rush" when I realized that you were ready to close up and we were still sitting in the snack area. And thanks for sitting at the next table and engaging PK in conversation and offering to get him some more ketchup so he could finish his hot dog. And thanks for telling me where a phone and a gas station were, and for asking kindly how much further we had to drive, and for wishing us luck and expressing sympathy when I said that the car had overheated. Thanks for pretending to believe me when I pretended for PK's sake that this was no big deal and it would be fine and I wasn't worried about it at all.

I know you couldn't have had any idea what was going on behind all of that (...) You don't know me, and I don't know you. And I'll never see you again. But you really helped me out today. Thanks."

It's so easy to be nice to total strangers when it looks as though they need it, and also so easy to forget and just not bother. Why don't we do this all the time? I have no idea. However:

I'd like to take this opportunity to say thanks to some people who helped me out when I needed it. (Just people I didn't know; the list of actual friends who have been kind at crucial moments would be way, way too long.)

To the family who were staying in the same Jerusalem hostel as I was back in 1982, and who invited me to come to the Dead Sea with them: You have no idea how much that meant. I had just seen my sister off at the airport, having decided to stay on in Jerusalem for a year. As soon as she left, it really hit me that I had no friends, no money, no job, no place to stay, no nothing. I was feeling really spooked by it, all the more so since it seemed to me that I badly needed human contact, but was in such a terrible mood that I didn't dare to talk to anyone, and wouldn't have felt that I could in good conscience inflict my company on anyone anyways. That you reached out to me made all the difference in the world, and I thank you for it.

To Malcolm in Berkeley: when one of my housemates, who had always been pretty unpleasant, blew up at me for sitting in the wrong chair (?!), and I really thought he was going to beat me up until I left the house, you volunteered to go with me to collect my stuff, even though you didn't know me well at all. I was trying not to admit to myself or anyone else that I was really physically afraid of him, and it made a huge difference that you were there.

To Connie at the biker bar: I had just started working there, and everyone knew that I was a PhD student at Harvard, since our delightful coke addict of a manager had made a big deal out of it, and I was trying to figure out how to live it down; and I came in to work one day and overheard you say to one of the other waitresses: Hilary isn't conceited; she's just smart. You were always generous, even though we had nothing (external) in common. Thanks. And thanks as well to the guy who sat in the corner about once a week nursing a beer, who always left $5 tips, even though he was clearly not rich by any stretch of the imagination. I was dead broke at the time, and those tips often made the difference between, say, shampoo and no shampoo.

There are too many people who helped me out when I was writing travel guides to begin to list. To represent all of them, I'll just pick the group of people who I'd never met before we all ended up on the same bus headed to the top of the Samaria Gorge in Crete at some awful hour like 4am. That day I hiked down the gorge, broke my toe en route, had to tramp all over the town at the bottom doing travel guide research, caught the last boat to my next destination, and then, when we arrived, a group of rude German tourists who were getting onto the boat kept shoving me away from the gangplank, so I couldn't get off, and I ended up in another town entirely. (And all this with PMS.) Luckily, I was able to persuade a fisherman to let me hitch a ride back on his boat, and when I got there, there were the people from the bus, waving from a restaurant where they had saved me a seat and ordered me a beer, saying "where were you?", and waiting to tell me about all the cheap hotels they had checked out for me while they were waiting for me, which I had had no idea they would do.

Also, the guy who gave me a copy of Nietzsche's The Gay Science in exchange for a Robert Ludlum novel in Mexico. I had nothing to read -- the Ludlum was a castoff from someone else, and otherwise I was reading comic romance novels in Spanish, which meant that I was learning how to say all sorts of things of no conceivable relevance to my life, like: "My father has locked me away in this castle, far from the eyes of men." Having a book that it was possible to reread with enjoyment was a godsend -- it wasn't possible to enjoy the Ludlum even the first time.

To the people who drove by me when I was walking home one night and yelled: "Smile, it can't be that bad!": I've always wished that I could take back my reply, which was to yell "How the hell would you know?" It was that bad, but I appreciated your trying to help, and I was ungracious.

-- I could go on almost endlessly; there are tons of people who have helped me out for no reason, to whom I'll always be grateful, and who there's no chance I'll ever be able to repay. Which is why I think of myself as having a debt to the cosmos, which I can repay only by doing the same sort of thing for someone else. Not that I do it nearly often enough, of course.

Comments

[hilzoy]

I should say: BitchPhD didn't write 'sh*tty'. That was me, bowdlerizing her prose for the sake of the posting rules; but I only realized that I hadn't made that clear after I hit 'post'.

[xanax]

hil: in terms of random acts of kindness, you might be surprised to know just how far along you are in repaying your "debt to the cosmos." take it from one who, as a frequent benficiary, knows.

hilzoy -such a good, good soul.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

When I was ten I read a few Robert Ludlum novels before I realized that they were all the "Matarese Circle" rewritten. Unfortunately for me I had read his best one first, and couldn't understand what had happened. BTW the Matarese Circle isn't a bad example of the spy-thriller genre, though most of his other rewrites of it are pretty bad. "The Bourne Identity" is slightly less 'spy' and far more soap-opera amnesia game, and isn't too bad--though I didn't love the sequels.

I haven't read any of them since I was 14, so I could be totally wrong but when I reread the Lord of the Rings (which I had previously read at 10 or 11) I liked it even more, so who knows.

[Stan LS]

And thanks for undercharging us so that I could afford to buy him a hot dog AND an icee.

But wasn't she essentially stealing from her employer? :P

[Phil]

Maybe she made up the difference out of her pocket, Stan.

[Mo MacArbie]

I had the same reaction to Ludlum as SH. It's all retellings of the same basic story. This isn't bad if you like to escape to Cold War central Europe, but the repetition does wear.

And ditto for the Bourne novels. The first one is great. The second one ended and then went on for a hundred more pages. I never read the others.

But back on topic, I can't think of the instances of unlooked-for kindness in my life, but there have been a few. It is quite a gift to be so giving and also know how to avoid the overt I Am Being Kind To You air that can sometimes kill the effect! I hope some day to be able to achieve that state.

[Stan LS]

Phil, I thought about that, but undercharging usually means not entering the correct total in the register.

[Tad Brennan]

yeah, I'm worried this story is going to get so much air-time that it'll leak back to K-mart and get this poor woman in trouble for the alleged over-charging. When in fact she should get a lot of credit for giving them a piece of good PR.

So, my guess is that the blogger made her own mistake in mental math, and the clerk charged her exactly the right amount.

Failing that, I think the clerk made a strategic marketing decision to devote a tiny fraction of the company's revenues towards burnishing their corporate image.

Which worked, since now thousands have had a happy lump in their throat while thinking about the wonderful people at K-mart.

And accordingly, the clerk should be promoted to a very, very senior position in their corporate marketing offic, e.g., Goodwill Ambassador for K-mart, at a very, very high salary.

[hilzoy]

So tell your stories of kindness from strangers, everyone.

Also, OT, BBC's main headlines page lists this as a top story:

"London bomb accused in court "

Of course, it's the would-be bombers, but I was sort of hoping that this marked a reversion to the period when people used to bring criminal charges against inanimate objects (as well as animals, etc.) Bad law, but great headlines.

[Catsy]

Hil: And thanks for undercharging us so that I could afford to buy him a hot dog AND an icee.

Stan: But wasn't she essentially stealing from her employer? :P

Ah, compassionate conservatism at work.

We'll set aside for a moment the very real possibility that the woman, as noted above, could have made up the difference out of her own pocket. Having worked in retail, fast food, and a dozen different incarnations of telephone and internet customer service, I can't put a finger on the number of times I've been in a position where bending the rules or costing the company a little bit of money on a single transaction was, in my estimation, the right thing to do--not only for the customer, but also for the company in the big picture. You can't put a price tag on that kind of goodwill. Treating the customer like that will bring them back--not out of an expectation that you'll hook them up, but because you treated them like a human being instead of a dollar sign.

I'm aware that Corporate America, for the most part, does not share my philosophy of customer service, and that doing things like this are commonly regarded as Career Limiting Moves. This is why I don't feel obliged to share those practices with any given employer. I'm completely satisfied with my ethics and karma; my employers are satisfied with the fact that I improve their bottom line.

[Ugh]

but I was sort of hoping that this marked a reversion to the period when people used to bring criminal charges against inanimate objects (as well as animals, etc.)

The Michael Jackson trial was pretty close, considering he was 75% inanimate object.

[lily]

A friend and I went on a cross-continent bike trip many moons ago. We had the experience seven or eight times of strangers paying for things for us, without telling us. I mean we found out when we got up to pay our bill that someone, usually not there anymore, had paid already. Unknown anonymous people bought us lunches, paid for our campsites etc. The acts were of friendliness, I think , more than kindness, since we weren't in need, in fact were enjoying our adventure thoroughly. Anywy I have always felt that if I could make a donation to someone here and there every now and them that I was passing on the friendliness of those people who just did something nice for me when I didn't even need it.

[Phil]

OK, here's one of mine: My wife and I, several years ago, were driving from Cleveland to Columbus to meet some friends. Here we were toodling down I-71 when I noticed we awere suddenly WAY low on gas, and nowhere close to an exit . As expected, the car began to lurch and cough as we started to run out; luckily, an exit came up, so I pulled off. We were still nowhere near a gas station, but there was a Perkins or somesuch restaurant, so I managed to get into the parking lot. I got the gas can out of the trunk and was getting ready to ask in the restaurant, then go hiking, when a car pulled up: Husband, wife, a couple of kids. He asked me if we needed help and I told him we did.

After a short conversation, and sensing untold my wife's trepidation at either being left alone in a strange place or going off with strangers, he actually volunteered to take the gas can, go off and get me gas, and bring it back, then let me follow him to the station to finish filling up. All of which he proceeded to do. Remarkable kindness.

[hilzoy]

Oh dear, i'm sidetracking my own thread, but: I found an article on the medieval animal trials, and it's even stranger than I had remembered:

"The other form of animal trial comprised lawsuits against collections of noxious insects, mollusks, and rodents who were capable of large-scale damage to such victuals as grapes, ash, grain, etc. These pests, among them locusts, leeches, rats, and mice, were nearly always summoned before an ecclesiastical tribunal, which, after due deliberation, usually resorted to excommunication and exorcism. Contrary to secular trials, ecclesiastical ones never dealt with an individual animal. The earliest incident seems to have occurred in 1338/39, when the parish priest of Kaltern had an army of grasshoppers that devastated southern Tyrol banned after a trial by jury, uttering the solemn formulas of anathema from the church ambo.5

In general, a beleagured local community asked the bishop or his ofacial representative for this kind of legal help. The modus procedendi, which can be reconstructed best via documents from the episcopal court of Lausanne, was to name a proxy, who, with the help of an ofacial messenger, had the task of ordering the vermin to appear in person before the court on a given date. At the hearing, the judge would take one member of the species in hand and command it to depart the endangered area within a certain time. If the animals complied, the community gave its thanks to God with prayers. If not, as usually happened, the process in contumaciam had to continue. The judge would curse the delinquents, excommunicate them, and organize a procession aimed at destroying them. From time to time, however, even vermin and parasites were acknowledged a natural right to life and granted a piece of barren land to inhabit—that is, if they could be persuaded to emigrate there.6

The anathema pronounced by the ecclesiastical court at Mâcon in 1481 conveys the kind of ceremonious formalism used in denunciation of destructive insects, mice, and similar small creatures:

If they are, by virtue of Satan’s instigation, not obedient to this our order, or rather the order of the Church and God, we curse and ex-communicate them on part of God Omnipotent and all saints, and on these [animals] thus cursed and excommunicated we heap the sentence of anathema in these writings. You [the clergy] have to curse and to anathematize them on part of God Omnipotent, our Lord Jesus Christ and His passion, the holy virgin Mary, His mother, and all His saints, and have to inform them of that curse and anathema and have to declare them cursed, excommunicated and anthematized.7

It is remarkable that an excommunication—an expulsion from the Catholic Church, extra quam nulla est salvatio—was a regular feature in these actions, since only baptized humans were able to become members of this institution, let alone be exiled from it. If nonprofessing creatures were considered subject to excommunication, why did the Church never attempt to punish its non-Catholic enemies—say, the Muslims—in this manner? "

And:

" How could people have expected “unreasonable” beasts to understand their queries, admonitions, and commands? That they did so expect cannot be doubted. In a document dated 1452, the ofacials of Lausanne urged noxious vermin to appear before the court at a certain hour, “in order to respond to those matters about which they [were] accused (responsura de his quae sibi obiicientur).” The cockchafer larvae jeopardizing the food supply of Berne in 1478 were invited “to appear before the bishop in order to tell their story (zuo erschinen und iren glimpf zuo erzellen).” In 1515 or 1516, the ofacialate at Troyes addressed the insects devastating the vineyards, “however they might be named, to depart from the vineyards of Viallanoxa within six days, otherwise, if they do not obey to our admonition, we will anathemize
them.”13

The implication is that the insects would be able to understand what the messenger of the court was to tell them; had a free will by which to determine how to react to it; and could feel the weight of anathema, though not being members of the Catholic Church. Vermin appearing before the ecclesiastical court were often spared immediate extermination and brought back to their dwelling place to inform the others of their kind about the verdict.

A document authorized by the bishop of Lausanne, dated 1479, says, “We, Benedict of Monferrand, bishop of Lausanne etc., have heard the prayers of the mighty lords of Berne against the cockchafers, and the vicious and abominable answer of the same, and having armed ourselves with the holy cross . . . have pronounced our sentence in this case.” Thus, the prelate testiaed to have heard not only the gravamina of the burghers of Berne but also the answer of the young cockchafer. In another case, the plaintiffs drew up an elaborate contract with weevils that they tried to enforce at court (St. Julien, 1587).1"

And:

"Bartholomé Chassenée (1480–1542), a French jurist, is said to have made a reputation for himself by successfully defending the rats of the dioceses of Autun, arguing that they had failed to appear before the court in the allotted time because they had been threatened by too many cats. Thus did he win an extension for his clients. In 1520, he allegedly devised a similar defense for the woodworms of Mamirolle."

History and the law: both very, very strange.

[hilzoy]

Phil: that's a great story.

And: forgot to give the cite for the last thingo. The quotes are from Peter Dinzelbacher: Animal Trials: A Multidisciplinary Approach, in the Journal of Interdisciplinary History, xxxii:3 (Winter, 2002), 405–421.

[von]

What a great post. Thanks, Hilzoy.

[Al Hill]

When I was about 13 my mother left one of her 6 husbands and headed from Virginia to LA with 4 kids in a 1959 Chevy we called the beast ... it got about 20 miles to the quart of gas ... we ran out of money in Las Vegas ... and no she was not betting it all away ... she stopped at a pawn shop and pawned an old clok radio .. I think it was the only thing in the car that worked ... the guy gave he $10 for it ... if it was worth $2 I'll eat my hat ... before we could get out of the parking lot his wife came out and ask us if we had eaten yet ... anyway to make a long story short ... they gave us a place to stay for a week and my Mom waited tables and I cleaned tables and dishes ... they feed us ... clothed us with stuff from the pawn shop ... did a little work on the car ... and we headed on to LA and my mom's new job ... without those two people I have no idea what would have happened to us... to this day when ever I do something for some one .. I think of them ...

[bob mcmanus]

Yada,Yada. In the mean streets of my 1970's the acts of extraordinary generosity are uncountable. I literally gave the shirt off my back and shared someone else's last meal. "I have always relied on the kindness of strangers"...I have sometimes wondered at what kinds of irony Williams intended there.

After the three years in hospitals and dialysis centers with my mother I of course could tell hundreds of stories. Half the people in dialysis are dying. When I put the old man's dropped shoe back on his foot I made eye-contact and smiled so he knew it was no favor, no embarrassment. Twaren't nothin but a sea of kindness.

Was walking my dogs thru the park Friday, there was a family 300 yards away, an 8-yr-old waves and yells:"Hi!" I am, make no mistake, a very ugly person with beautiful dogs...not my opinion, the world's, trust me...but my relationship with my dogs makes me look beautiful. Or something. It is these littlest things, the eye contact with strangers.....I swim in an ocean of kindness.

Jesus and Buddha and Mohammed knew their stuff. Relationships suck, kindness is treating the stranger like family and family like strangers.

I named my cat "Seymour" after a JD Salinger story. The little girl in the next airplane seat turns the head of her doll toward Seymour, and Seymour starts crying uncontrollably, goes home and kills himself.
I guess the world got too beautiful to bear.

[LizardBreath]

I got stuck in Fiji for a week once with no money (I was in the Peace Corps in Samoa, and had been in Japan on vacation, where I had spent all of my money. On the way back to Samoa, I had to change planes in Fiji, and the airport in Samoa shut down leaving me stranded) and a series of backpackers fed me for the week. Thank you, Dutch guy and Welsh couple; I was trying to act insouciant about being stranded, broke, in a country where I didn't know anyone, but I was lonely and scared, and the food and company were very much appreciated.

[trilobite]

Israelis can be stunningly kind people. My wife and I were about to head home from a two-week trip there when we discovered that somebody at our last hostel had pinched our passports. An Israeli guy named Zvi who had been mildly flirting with my wife in the souk overheard us talking about it and lent us his cell phone to make increasingly frantic calls to our travel agent and airport people. Finally, he drove us to the American Embassy, woke up the consul (it was nearly midnight by then), and bullied him into writing us a letter that got us through customs. I never even learned his last name.

As for trials against things, we have them all the time. All forfeiture proceedings are brought as United States (or whichever state or agency it is) v. the object being seized. I think my favorite was U.S. v. 15 Parrots.

[felixrayman]

Or United States v. One 1974 Cadillac El Dorado Sedan for the RTX fans among us...

[Catsy]

Anecdotal, but everyone I've ever met who (to my knowledge) was either Jewish or raised in a Jewish household has been incredibly generous and willing to bend over backwards to help strangers--and particularly to feed them.

Not universally true, of course, but I think there's something about people who are culturally Jewish that inspires generosity.

(Troll spray: no comments about I/P please.)

[Saiyuk]

This is probably the moment for me to mention the reasonably droll 1993 film The Advocate, in which Colin Firth plays a medieval French lawyer who finds himself assigned to defend a pig on murder charges.

Also: wasn't Seymour talking to the little girl on the beach?

[hilzoy]

Yo, Saiyuk! (Had I been in any doubt about whether you were, in fact, the Saiyuk I thought you were, the movie cite would have nailed it...) Welcome aboard ;)

[Stan LS]

Catsy,

Ah, compassionate conservatism at work.

Ah, my "compassionate conservatism" is being pointed out for merely pointing out one of the facts of the story.

We'll set aside for a moment the very real possibility that the woman, as noted above, could have made up the difference out of her own pocket

Sure. There's also the possibility that the woman owned the place.

Having worked in retail, fast food, and a dozen different incarnations of telephone and internet customer service, I can't put a finger on the number of times I've been in a position where bending the rules or costing the company a little bit of money on a single transaction was, in my estimation, the right thing to do

Uhmm... I worked in fast food, and I wouldn't dare "estimate" what the right thing to do is when it comes to someone else's money.

but I think there's something about people who are culturally Jewish that inspires generosity.

It's the Jewish grandmother in us :)

[bob mcmanus]

"Also: wasn't Seymour talking to the little girl on the beach?"

Airplane is what I remember, tho I could be wrong. I also remember the doorful of epigrams, and the snowball fight where Seymour just kept getting hit and laughing.
And certainly my interpretation of his suicide could be arguable.

[Tad Brennan]

I have been very moved and touched by all these stories of kindness from strangers, and I wanted to share something that just recently happened.

My wife and I have suffered some financial reverses, and we have been tearing our hair out about how to make ends meet. We really were not sure what to do next, or where to turn to, when suddenly a stranger appeared to save us.

As with so many of these stories, you just have to wonder why people are so nice sometimes. Except, unlike some of the stories about people helping out with a few dollars here or a can of gas there, our new friend is going to send us a *lot* of money--I am a little embarrassed to say how much. And he is making it so easy for us, too--he says he will take care of all of the financial details and things.

I wish I could give him the recognition he deserves, but like a true gentleman he insists on remaining anonymous. And part of what struck me was how gracious he was about all of it. He actually told us, in one of his follow-up emails, that it was *we* who were doing *him* a favor! Isn't that amazing? Doesn't true generosity always show itself in these little things?

I keep wondering about all of it, and pondering the many mysterious connections that weave the world together. How did he learn of our difficulties? Why is an important government official like him choosing to give so much money to people he has never met? Aren't there any people in Central Africa who need help? But somehow he must know how much we need it, and what a relief it is going to be in a few days when the money arrives in our bank account.

And of course, I keep pondering the greatest mystery of all--the mystery of the human spirit. Capable of all of the acts described in the wonderful stories you all have told, and capable of reaching out to touch our family, too.

[Kyle Hasselbacher]

When I was a student walking around campus town with a scowl on my face, a homeless guy said to me, "smile, kid, it can't be that bad!"

He was right; it wasn't. I still feel a little brighter remembering that.

[Anarch]

I keep wanting to offer a similar anecdote but I honestly can't remember ever giving or ever receiving a "random" act of kindness in the way that you mean.* I can't help thinking, especially in this thread, that this must somehow be the sign of a severe character flaw.

* That isn't quite true in that there are family stories of me receiving such gifts as a child; it is, however, true that I don't recall any such events personally.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

My parents on at least five occasions (that I'm aware of) engaged in a practice which I have only personally employed once, but which I think is interesting. When someone needs help, but is too proud to accept it, you just go over to their house when they aren't there and slip money under their door.

[Mark Pettinelli]

I think kindness is more than just "charity" and its more like everything, it can be applied to any situation, say our government is kinder than hitlers regime was to jews, for example, and those kinds of kindness should be promoted as well. more directed. its explained here. www.kindnessassociation.org