Yesterday morning at the MacDonald's on Rte. 347 in Stony Brook a random act of kindness occurred.
While I was giving my order to the drive-in's metal box a small gray car swooped around me and pulled up to the paying window.
When I got to that window and was about to hand over my $3.26 to the lady she said, "There's no charge. The lady in front of you paid for you."
WHAAAAAT?!
Amazed, I asked her to repeat that.
"The lady ahead of you paid for you," she said. "Do you know her?"
"No," I said. And she didn't know me either,
as she'd just swooped in out of the blue
to pay for the breakfast of a stranger.
Remembering a recent TV report about a place in the midwest where this kind of thing has turned into a months-long chain, I said, "Then I'll pay for the person behind me" (Uh-oh, I just heard his bill, nine something). But she said, "No, you can't do that."
So I drove off and was so wrapped in amazement that I forgot to pick up my egg thingies at the next window and had to back up a long way for them. Guess I had some idea of chasing the gray car. (Who was that masked man?)
World take note! This sort of thing could subvert our whole system of material goods and human values. And what a high one must get being the giver!
Thank you, stranger!!
