Tuesday 11 March 2014

Good Things in Little Packages (Lent part three)



How can it be so hard to do nice things for strangers?  Well, it seems I sit in an office most of the day, interact with known salespeople at lunchtime and then go home.  So no strangers bring themselves into my day needing kindness.  Therefore some must have kindness thrust upon them.

6. Occasionally I, like most other drivers (but certainly not all) let people into my flow of traffic from their flow of traffic, or in from side roads, junctions or garages.  And occasionally they are invisible so I drive right on by.  Today I made a point of letting in all who needed to be let in, whenever I could.  Not many, but a few.  The best, and, as it turned out, the last, was a fox.  At 5.15pm, daylight, a fox emerged from the bank on the left of the A4 and trotted almost casually across.  I had seen it emerge, expected it to run, but no.  It limped a little, and as I approached in my car it turned its face to look at me, then carried on.  Quite nonchalant.  So part of my kindness to a stranger turned out to be not running over a fox, and, whilst doing so, probably annoying the seven cars forced to slow down behind me.

My glasses are returned in a most peculiar set of good luck moments. I had proof that I had indeed left the glasses at the charity shop as I saw my glasses case on sale as soon as I entered the shop.  Turns out they threw the glasses away.  But it had been in the last lot of the day, so would probably be on top.  Turns out that the bin had been emptied.  But it had only ten minutes before been put in the outside bin.  Turns out it was an industrial size bin.  But only five minutes of searching amongst puzzles and broken books and they were spotted.  Turns out the bin men were due to come but hadn’t arrived.  What luck!  They were not even scratched, broken, twisted or warped.

7. Today my kindness to strangers is invisible.

          1. I will not get cross with the lady who very nearly ran me over with her trolley in the shop
          2. I will not scowl at the shop assistant who dropped a box of milk at my feet.
          3. I will not judge the suit clad businessman who walked past saying to his suit clad businessman colleagues ‘well, ideally, my plan is that when my youngest starts school I’d like my wife to return to work’

Ah well, two out of three.

Why not, my wife wants to return to work?  Or Our plan is…?  Or My wife says that…?

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