Post: #1

I found this story on Tumblr.
Well, things spread fast on the net, so you might already seen it. But i liked the story and find it sweet. So i tought i should share it with you.

A NYC Taxi driver wrote:

I arrived at the address and honked the horn. After waiting a few minutes I honked again. Since this was going to be my last ride of my shift I thought about just driving away, but instead I put the car in park and walked up to the door and knocked.. ‘Just a minute’, answered a frail, elderly voice. I could hear something being dragged across the floor.

After a long pause, the door opened. A small woman in her 90’s stood before me. She was wearing a print dress and a pillbox hat with a veil pinned on it, like somebody out of a 1940’s movie.

By her side was a small nylon suitcase. The apartment looked as if no one had lived in it for years. All the furniture was covered with sheets.

There were no clocks on the walls, no knickknacks or utensils on the counters. In the corner was a cardboard box filled with photos and glassware.

‘Would you carry my bag out to the car?’ she said. I took the suitcase to the cab, then returned to assist the woman.

She took my arm and we walked slowly toward the curb.

She kept thanking me for my kindness. ‘It’s nothing’, I told her.. ‘I just try to treat my passengers the way I would want my mother to be treated.’

‘Oh, you’re such a good boy, she said. When we got in the cab, she gave me an address and then asked, ‘Could you drive through downtown?’

‘It’s not the shortest way,’ I answered quickly..

‘Oh, I don’t mind,’ she said. ‘I’m in no hurry. I’m on my way to a hospice.

I looked in the rear-view mirror. Her eyes were glistening. ‘I don’t have any family left,’ she continued in a soft voice..’The doctor says I don’t have very long.’ I quietly reached over and shut off the meter.

‘What route would you like me to take?’ I asked.

For the next two hours, we drove through the city. She showed me the building where she had once worked as an elevator operator.

We drove through the neighborhood where she and her husband had lived when they were newlyweds She had me pull up in front of a furniture warehouse that had once been a ballroom where she had gone dancing as a girl.

Sometimes she’d ask me to slow in front of a particular building or corner and would sit staring into the darkness, saying nothing.

As the first hint of sun was creasing the horizon, she suddenly said, ‘I’m tired.Let’s go now’. We drove in silence to the address she had given me. It was a low building, like a small convalescent home, with a driveway that passed under a portico.

Two orderlies came out to the cab as soon as we pulled up. They were solicitous and intent, watching her every move. They must have been expecting her.

I opened the trunk and took the small suitcase to the door. The woman was already seated in a wheelchair.

‘How much do I owe you?’ She asked, reaching into her purse.

‘Nothing,’ I said

‘You have to make a living,’ she answered.

‘There are other passengers,’ I responded.

Almost without thinking, I bent and gave her a hug.She held onto me tightly.

‘You gave an old woman a little moment of joy,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’

I squeezed her hand, and then walked into the dim morning light.. Behind me, a door shut.It was the sound of the closing of a life..

I didn’t pick up any more passengers that shift. I drove aimlessly lost in thought. For the rest of that day,I could hardly talk.What if that woman had gotten an angry driver,or one who was impatient to end his shift? What if I had refused to take the run, or had honked once, then driven away?

On a quick review, I don’t think that I have done anything more important in my life.

We’re conditioned to think that our lives revolve around great moments.

But great moments often catch us unaware-beautifully wrapped in what others may consider a small one.

Post: #2

K, that one was a tear-jerker, lol!
Idk, I try to do kind things as much as possible. It would be hard to tally them up. I guess the nicest thing I've done for strangers is buying a couple of run-aways (trying to hitch a ride) a hotel room to stay in for the night (in the winter), but my husband was with me, so he knows about that.

Post: #3

(05-12-2012 5:03 PM)Beccah Wrote:  K, that one was a tear-jerker, lol!
Idk, I try to do kind things as much as possible. It would be hard to tally them up. I guess the nicest thing I've done for strangers is buying a couple of run-aways (trying to hitch a ride) a hotel room to stay in for the night (in the winter), but my husband was with me, so he knows about that.

Doing a thing like that is just wonderful. Its not everybody who do such things.

If i should think what i have done, its not that easy to remember anything. Mostly i am pure evil.
But i do let families or singles who i know have financial problems get credit at my store, so they can get some food, even when i know they are likely not to come back and pay.
I do randomly hire a man to do certain fix-it jobs and paintings when such things are needed. I dont hire him because he does a good job, and mostly i could have done it better myself. I do it because he lives on a minimum pension and even if he's to proud to say it, i can see he have problems getting the bills paid.
I give some of my employers extra work shift. Not because i need more people on, but because i know they need the money. If there is a month i know any of them have some extra financial problems, i try to give that person some extra when they get their payment. I dont want them to know i give them more than what they actually should have. Because i dont want them to feel they owe me anything or to have them think they got more than they deserved.
Or to say it in a different way : I am a terrible businessman!

Post: #4

(05-12-2012 6:42 PM)Q-Tips Wrote:  Doing a thing like that is just wonderful. Its not everybody who do such things.

If i should think what i have done, its not that easy to remember anything. Mostly i am pure evil.
But i do let families or singles who i know have financial problems get credit at my store, so they can get some food, even when i know they are likely not to come back and pay.
I do randomly hire a man to do certain fix-it jobs and paintings when such things are needed. I dont hire him because he does a good job, and mostly i could have done it better myself. I do it because he lives on a minimum pension and even if he's to proud to say it, i can see he have problems getting the bills paid.
I give some of my employers extra work shift. Not because i need more people on, but because i know they need the money. If there is a month i know any of them have some extra financial problems, i try to give that person some extra when they get their payment. I dont want them to know i give them more than what they actually should have. Because i dont want them to feel they owe me anything or to have them think they got more than they deserved.
Or to say it in a different way : I am a terrible businessman!

Yes you are a terrible businessman hehe. But karma will smile upon you. You deserve it.

Post: #5

The nicest thing I have ever done that no one knew about was pay off the medical bills of a female janitor who worked in my office building.

She disappeared for over 2 months. I wondered where she was and asked about her to another janitor. The guy told me she had breast cancer and was being treated. I thought that she had quit and went back to her home country to be with her family as she always talked about how much she missed them.

I told the rest of the office and we bought her flowers, cards, gifts, and visited her. When she was told she no longer had cancer she came back to work really fast and looked bad. The word in the office was that she had medical bills she needed to pay because the company didn't offer janitorial staff healthcare plans. So I contacted the billing department of the hospital and paid her bills.

Post: #6

I can actually speak from the other side of this. In my poorer days as a student, I have had several people do really nice things for me that helped me out more than they know. Using the taxi example, a taxi driver once stopped his meter for the last ten minutes of a drive when he heard I was short on cash rather than drop me off early.

One really nice thing that has always stayed with me was the time I bogged my car in the middle of nowhere. A couple and their ten-year-old grand daughter came across me and spent nearly two hours trying to help me get it free. When it was clear we couldn't get it out, they called the road service people for me on their phone to save the charge to my mobile, then waited with me another couple of hours until they got there. It was getting dark and the weather was rapidly dropping to below freezing, so the wife went back home and returned with a thermos and some mugs and we all had hot drinks while we waited. When the mechanic arrived they tried their damndest to pay the bill, which was nearly $300, but I wouldn't let them. Then to top it off, because I had been delayed so much I couldn't make it to where I needed to be that night, they insisted I stay with them in their spare room. Nothing felt better that night than climbing into that warm, soft bed.

Going through a very dark time in my life then, this was a real ray of hope for me and helped restore my faith in humanity. We exchanged email addresses and I still go to visit them whenever I am in the area.

Post: #7

Aww such touching stories

Can't recall a the most special 'nice' deed i've done atm. Like i talk to an elderly across the road from me, My time listening to her perhaps made her day. The homeless around the cities and i remember my sister gave me 20 dollar note to put on his coin hat.

I remember in the movie pulp fiction the character that was played by.. samuel jackson with the robbery guy. I found that was probably the nicest thing he ever did in the movie after his killing spree.

Post: #8

... There was one woman who I was renting my house to (at a time when I was very tight for cash, struggling to pay the mortgage.) I was working on a job out of state. She didn't pay a deposit (Mom was supposed to get an extra-large deposit due to the woman's credit history, but let her in before the deposit was delivered), stayed for free as long as she could, and wrecked the place including putting a large hole in the wall. We had to go to court to get her out. The stress from the whole incident contributed to the loss of my job and I had to spend close to a month working on the place to get it livable again.

I found out the woman had some pain-related medical issues and that she'd been told by her doctor that she was allergic to COX-2 inhibitors, which meant that she had to go into the hospital for some hard core drugs to get pain relief. They say "when you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras." COX-2 allergy is possible, but extremely odd and rare since it means a person is allergic to several very different drugs. I went over with the woman the incidents which led her doctor to suggest she was allergic to COX-2 inhibitors. I looked up the drugs in question and they were all propionic acid derivatives. (Ibuprofen, aleve, etc.) Heck, she'd taken aspirin in the past and been fine with it, which doesn't jive with a diagnosis of COX-2 inhibitor allergy. So I suggested to her that she
she was probably just allergic to propionic acid derivatives.

The research only cost me a few hours of my time, I suppose. But given what that woman put me through, I figure I did a bit more than common courtesy required.

Post: #9

Maybe I am a little ole fashion but my grandma and older family members would always say:

"When you do a favor dont worry about remembering it.
When you receive a favor remember to never forget it."

Society seems to preach "demonize thy neighbor" these days but I still think most people are decent humans.
Unfortunately a minority will not do or appreciate, some even taking pride in proclaiming themselves "assholes" and "bitches".
Oh well they can have their own sour life to themselves.

Post: #10

I just remembered... Sending a gift to someone that loathes you. (i think..)