Random acts

Tiny, even very tiny, acts of kindness and consideration grab you.

In the Ocracoke restaurant called Pony Island, I finish my lunch as they are closing for the afternoon. Young woman who served me, she's mopping a section of the floor. I get up from my table, to see if I can find a toilet. Turns out it is across the section of floor she is at work on. I'm about to step on it when she notices and stops me.

"This is slippery stuff I'm using!" she exclaims. She looks at the Hi-Tec boots I'm wearing and shakes her head. "My shoes, they won't slip. But those ..."; she leaves unsaid, but very clear, what will happen.

Then she reaches out her hand, grabs mine firmly and gently escorts me across, all the way to the door of the toilet.

"Thanks," I say.

Two weeks ago, I was in a tiny Kentucky town where no signal reached the cellphone I'm carrying. I needed to make an urgent call, so I drove around looking for a public phone. None of those to be found, and I also began running low on fuel. Stopped to fill up at a small station-cum-convenience store, went in to pay.

Teenage girl behind the counter. After paying, I ask: "Do you have a pay phone here? I need to make a call and my cell has no signal."

She says: "I'm new here, so I don't know. But let me go ask my manager."

She's back in ten seconds, holding out a cellphone. "Here's mine," she says. "It has a signal. Go ahead, make your call."

I protest. Smile across her face, she insists.