The Random Acts of Kindness Thread

[Azrael]

Erm...your Gram was a madam?

[midgetshrimp]

I think Asaryu's saving of Ossum the Opossum belongs here as well. That was quite random, and not in the least bit unkind.

[Tenjen]

where is the little bugger?

[Asaryu]

Ossum the Possum is being looked after till he's old enough to look after himself. I took him to the vet, but my phone ran out of battery so I didn't get a call to let me know how he's doing.

[Don Alexander]

By the way, Sarah thought Ossum the Possum was very, very ossum!!

[Radbaron]

Was driving home last night from my search and rescue meeting, about 1030pm, and noticed a car pulled over on the highway with it's 4-way flashers activated. Pulled over beside the car, got out and walked back to the car... while the driver walked up to my passenger window! We finally meet around the back of my vehicle, it's a young girl , maybe 19-21 years old. Tells me that the car will go, but only about 20 yards at a time. She has forgotten her cellphone (no I did NOT make this up) and had been there for over an hour. I hand her mine, she calls her mother. I ask if she wants to wait by the car, or for a lift into town. Since she didn't have anyone to come pick her up, I get to bring her home. Thankfully she only lives about 2 miles from my place, so we go down a side road instead of the highway to her place. We are having car talk, I mention that I actually have one for sale, we both laugh. About 2 minutes from her place, I suggest she gets CAA/AAA for when she travels. She then says "oh, I do have it, but I don't have my card on me" Oh well. If she had mentioned that before, we could have had the tow-truck go directly to her car, but it's too late now. (CAA can look up all your info, so the card isn't REALLY needed)

We finally pull into the driveway of her home, where her mother is patiently waiting. Except that her daughter is 1 hour overdue from when she was first expected. Hopefully, her car is back now and fixed, and maybe I might get a sale out of it

[Don Alexander]

It seems, me, of all people, has to threadlich this one every once in a while.

Anyway, today, I had to do a random act of kindness to compensate for my deviltry at the store...

NOT.

I actually started the kind of random act of hopeful kindness long before smashing the bottle and getting rewarded for it too.

As the World Cup is now over, they are selling off the last of the WC-branded merchandise cheaply. And they had some Cup-shaped chocolate statues (350 grams of choc, quite large), which originally cost 5 euros, now only cost ONE!!!

So, since we have a Spanish PhD in our group, and she, despite not being a football fan, was extremely happy with her nation winning the cup, and she also chocolate, I bought her one!

Yeah, and guess who seems to not be here today. Sick again!

[Don Alexander]

It seems, me, of all people, has to threadlich this one every once in a while.

Meeeee again.

I found a big butterfly on the ceiling of my bathroom. I poked it a bit and it climbed on to my finger. I carried it to the open balcony door into the sunshine, and it flapped away.

PS.: I didn't even get a crumb of the chocolate world Cup, after having it sit for several weeks in the fridge, she gobbled it all up alone.

[Lilianna]

Nifty.

Yesterday, at Walmart, I was waiting in line to buy about $5 worth of stuff. All of a sudden, this older man cuts in line and I'm thinking "woah, what are you doing?". Then I hear him explain to the lady behind him that he's diabetic and he wants to hurry up and buy a chocolate bar. She lets him cut and he grabs a Three Musketeers. He starts digging through his pockets for change, but it didn't look like he'd have enough, so I interrupted him and told him I'd pay for it. I didn't think it was really a big act of kindness until he started thanking me profusely. Then my head swelled up.

[Dirty n Evil]

I wanted to report a random act of kindness... not by myself, but by a customer!

I was at the registers for the better part of the day, and there were quite of few people who ignored common politeness issues as usual. But then I had a customer come up with her child, and just as we're starting the transaction the customer's cellphone begins to ring. The daughter asks her why doesn't she pick up, and the customer turns to her daughter and says, "That would be rude to the young man who's ringing us up... you always wait until you're finished dealing with one person before addressing another."

I leaned over, smiled very warmly and thanked her with all of my heart.

[Lilianna]

That's amazing, DnE.

I've found myself being much kinder since moving here. Maybe it's just more human interaction on the whole? Nonetheless, I felt rewarded by karma today. I picked up somebody else's plates (they were left right under the "place dishes in dish return" sign... which is two inches to the right of the dish return... ) and put them in dish return. Not more than two seconds later, an employee (who I don't think even saw me) complimented my skirt. I was like "thank you powers that be, this is like a chain of kind starting, but in reverse"

[Swayambhu]

Well, my act of kindness ended up backfiring on me and a neighbor.

Yesterday at the apartments, I was coming back with Rj with some Taco Bell in hand, right?

Out of no where, this dog just SPEEDS into the hallway, tackles him, then tackles me.

He's like, "What the hell?" and I'm like, "HEY CUTIE" and proceed to play with said dog.

It was a boxer puppy, bigger than your average puppy, but not full grown. Couldn't have even been a whole year old.

No leash, no collar, no tags. And if the poor thing had been any skinnier, I would have assumed it a stray. (Might as well been, but I'll get to that. Did I mention she had an eye infection, too?)

I'd seen the thing running around the apartments before, so I told Rj to go ahead and get inside while I walked around to see if I can find its owner.

20 minutes later, with more playing than following, one of the neighbors saw me and told me she knew whose dog that was and what its name was. Emily, she told me.

She volunteered to help me bring the dog inside. I carried Emily in, worried about setting her down, but Michelle (the neighbor) said she'd done this a hundred times before. (She didn't even jump up on the furniture or knock things down in her excitement, like mine tend to do.) Poor Emily was dreadfully thirsty, went through two bowls of water.

Michelle led me over to the neighbors who owned the dog, explained on the way how they never take care of it. It's always running around free, sometimes for hours and hours at a time. I'm surprised no one's reported these people yet...

Turns out? They were moving.

We asked if they'd lost themselves a dog, and the wife started to speak (smile and all) when her jerk husband interjected with a grumpy, "No, we're not." Wife just sort of stood there, speechless, holding her shoulders and hands up like "idklol."

So playfully, Michelle said, "Fine then, we'll just keep it!" and we both wandered off.

They didn't even try following us.

I...honestly thought they were just going to strand their dog at the apartments. I noticed their apartment was fairly empty, so they were probably going to be gone and moved out that very day.

So you can guess that I'm pretty disheartened at that point, because Emily's a good dog. A very good dog. Why anyone in the world would dump their puppy like that sounds pretty heartless to me.

Michelle said she might just keep the dog, since she's practically been taking care of it all these months. I told her if she couldn't, or needed help with the dog in any way, to give me a call. (I was going to see about finding a boxer rescue shelter. Not the kind that put pups to sleep, but you know...a shelter for boxers. They have them out here for bulldogs, greyhounds, and great danes, amongst other breeds.)

We shook hands, thanked each other, and I wandered on back to the apartment. Ate my tacos, played some Scott Pilgrim, showered, then I got a phone call from her.

She was crying.

"What's wrong?" "Oh. Nothing, I'm fine, I'm just...a little upset." "What happened?" "Well...(nervous chuckle) I took Emily back to them again." "And?" "Well, remember that asshole...?" "Hard not to." "Well, he just started screaming and yelling at me, cursing, getting up in my face about Emily..." "...Over the dog he didn't want?" "He said he wanted the dog." "Only probably because she's a pure-breed..." "He was getting really aggressive..." "He didn't hurt you, did he?" "N-no, but I think he would have, if there hadn't been people around...his fists were clenched pretty tightly." "Why didn't you call me?" "I-I didn't really think about it, I didn't know he was going to act like this." "What a dick. Did he take the dog back?" "Yeah, but not without screaming at me some more." "Michelle, I'm so sorry. You should have called me, me and Rj would have at least been there with you." "I'm sorry, I'm really sorry. I don't think I'm going to be doing anymore doggy rescues after that..." What, because of him?" "I just don't want to get caught up in that mess again, that was just awful."

Etc., etc.

Poor Emily, he's probably just going to breed her. Boxer pups go for a pretty penny around these parts.

Honestly wish she hadn't given her back, the neighbors didn't know where she lived. But then again, we weren't even sure if she was chipped or not. (Wasn't leash-trained, that was for damn sure.)

I'm going to pay Michelle another visit, maybe give her some baked goods. (Made by yours truly.)

I can understand why she was scared though. A brute like that, if he'd hurt her, it would have been to the hospital with her. She was an older woman, still recovering from a broken ankle.

Scum like that shouldn't even own dogs. Emily deserves better than him.

[Tenjen]

i'am already in the sort of mood where if i ran into something like that. I'd close to murder that asshole.

Edit. Iam so pissed that my blood pressure has gone up and despite the room being cold from th a/c i'am broiling hot with fury.

dont bother, iam already breathing it out.

Such filth.

[Lilianna]

Where do you live and where's the douche moving to?

*grabs sledgehammer*

[Outhro]

back in June I donated my hair to locks of love again, and a few weeks later turned in my donation for Going Bald for Bucks.
I got two free haircuts leaving me bald. One for making wigs for cancer patients and the other for cancer research.