I was in Dublin with my wife, looking for a hotel room. Turns out I was there on a TRIPLE holiday and all the rooms in town were sold out. After hours of looking, and getting lost, I happened upon a Best Western in the middle of town. I went in and asked for a room, and the man at the desk said, "We're booked up" - then he proceeded to call around until he found a room available. Now, here's the nice thing...
...after he secured the room for me, he began to tell me how to get to the hotel, then looked with pity and said, "You'll never get there from here. Come on, follow me." He proceeded to get in his car and drive half way across Dublin, then got out of his car and walked to the hotel desk with me to make sure everything was ok. He did this with no reward, no compensation - just out of the goodness of his heart; and he did it for a complete stranger.
The hotel we ended up in was a little six room inn above a typical Irish Pub. It was delightful, and not unlike some kind of "Middle Earth" tavern in Tolkien's world.
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Nicest old lady ever.
A while back I was trying to start my own business and my wife and I were barely scraping by, and we decided to escape a long night of stress by taking a $100 Visa gift card we had from Christmas and going to Benihana for dinner. Irresponsible and dumb, but we needed a break from the hopelessness.
An elderly man and his wife sat next to us at Benihana, and struck up a conversation with us. Turned out he had started his own business when he was young, struggled, and was now very successful. He paid the checks for everyone at the table (6 strangers). Wouldn't take no for an answer. I looked at him, unable to say anything but a weak "thank you so much."
He winked, and told me to do the same when I've had as much success. I hadn't told my wife, but I was planning to give up after that night. After meeting that man and hearing his story, I kept on.
A few years ago when I was at a Devo concert in Portland around the age of 13, I was stuck at the back of a crowd of a few thousand people.
Three complete strangers noticed my complete devo-tion; one started a moshpit for me so I could move ahead. Another one put my on his shoulders and pushed me ahead.
I made it all the way to the front of the stage and got to scream "WE ARE DEVO" into the mic with Mark Mothersbaugh at the apex of Jocko Homo.
Easily one of the best days of my life.
One time I was running for the train and in my haste I didn't notice my wallet go sailing from my pocket. I made my train only just barely... but realized about two stops up that my wallet had gone missing. This was of course cause for immediate stress... my bank card, my driver's license, and the only $200 I had to my name between there and payday were all in the wallet. I called the bank on the way home to cancel the card and the following morning I made an appointment with the DMV to get a replacement license... but I was still disappointed that I'd lost a wallet that I loved, and $200.
Fast-forward about a week. I get an odd package in the mail with no return address. I tear it open immediately, severely curious but having no idea what to expect to find... and there is my wallet, entirely intact. All the cards and papers and receipts, even the money. There was also a nice note from my good Samaritan. Apparently they'd seen me drop the wallet while running for the train and had tried to say something, but I was off too quickly. They didn't leave any contact information or even sign the note, so I've never been able to say thank you.
I was on my way to my part-time job back when I was in high school, and I was running late, in a snowstorm. I had stopped at a drive thru at McDonalds and decided to take a shortcut to try to shave some time off.
This being a small town in Idaho, a shortcut means a dirt road with a bunch of potholes. So I'm trying my best not to skid through ice when the front of my shitty 91' civic goes down through the ice. Suddenly it's submerged up to the top of the front bumper and I'm going nowhere. I get out and I'm nearly up to my knees in ice water. I pace around the car trying to think of something to do, or someone to call. I have no cell phone and there's no one around. Only the moonlight and my headlights keep me able to see, but in a heavy snowstorm everything kind of glows.
Out of seemingly nowhere this truck comes down the road with its lights off. They flicker on as it approaches. The truck spins around just in front of the ice puddle my car is stuck in, with me off to the side. Some mid-twenties cowboy hops out without a word, carrying a tow-rope to my car. He puts his hat on the front of my car, and goes headfirst into the ice puddle, only to emerge again within a minute. He grabs his hat, attaches the other end of the tow rope to his truck, and pulls my car out of the puddle.
I thanked him profusely but he didn't say a word back. He just lit a cigarette, nodded, and drove away without his lights on, out into the snowstorm.
Somebody gave me a fantastic blowjob and didn't even tell me her name, while in a college library, and without me flirting first. She just said 'you look stressed.'
It was 1988, and Mary Andersen was at the Miami airport checking in for a long flight to Norway to be with her husband when the airline representative informed her that she wouldn’t be able to check her luggage without paying a 100 surcharge:
When it was finally Mary’s turn, she got the message that would crush her bubbling feeling of happiness.
-You’ll have to pay a 103 dollar surcharge if you want to bring both those suitcases to Norway , the man behind the counter said.
Mary had no money. Her new husband had travelled ahead of her to Norway , and she had no one else to call.
-I was completely desperate and tried to think which of my things I could manage without. But I had already made such a careful selection of my most prized possessions, says Mary.
As tears streamed down her face, she heard a “gentle and friendly voice” behind her saying, “That’s okay, I’ll pay for her.” Mary turned around to see a tall man whom she had never seen before.
-He had a gentle and kind voice that was still firm and decisive. The first thing I thought was, Who is this man?
Although this happened 20 years ago, Mary still remembers the authority that radiated from the man.
-He was nicely dressed, fashionably dressed with brown leather shoes, a cotton shirt open at the throat and khaki pants, says Mary.
She was thrilled to be able to bring both her suitcases to Norway and assured the stranger that he would get his money back. The man wrote his name and address on a piece of paper that he gave to Mary. She thanked him repeatedly. When she finally walked off towards the security checkpoint, he waved goodbye to her.
Who was the man?
Barack Obama.