So, now the ball is in our court...A couple of weekends ago we were strolling down the sidewalk at The District and decided to get some pizza at Balboa's. We'd hardly made it to getting our drinks and Cole was all over the place. We'd given up on dinning out with a two-year-old, but thought we'd take a chance and it was proving to be a bad idea. The place was busy with several other families dinning near us. When our waiter came to take our order we decided to get an appetizer to hold Cole over a bit. The waiter came back with our appetizer and said as he was leaving something about someone paying for us. We didn't really hear him so we carried on with our meal. When we asked for the check and the waiter said again, "really, someone already picked up your bill." "Who?" "The family that was behind you," he said.
Greg and I were taken back. "Really?" My back had been to the table the waiter had gestured to, so I asked Greg, "Who was sitting behind us? Did you know them?" Just as shocked Greg said, "No. I don't really remember too much about them. It was a family with two boys a few years older than Cole, an older man and a younger lady." We both just sat there for a moment with goofy smiles on our faces.
As we packed up our stuff and got ready to leave, I kept looking around for the secret do-gooders, but I had no idea who I was looking for. Greg and I felt special. Sounds corny, but we did. Nothing like this had ever happened to us and we felt special that someone had gone out of their way to do something nice for people they didn't even know. We wondered if they'd seen us struggling with Cole and remembered those days...and maybe that prompted them to do a kind deed...We both agreed we needed to pay the kind deed forward. We are still not sure what or when we will, but when the opportunity strikes we'll do it.
The Story Goes On
The following Monday when my co-workers asked how my weekend was I relayed the story and told them how cool it was. That evening my friend Cate was shopping at Fresh & Easy when one of the staff offered her a bouquet of flowers. It made her night and she told me that it reminded her of my experience that weekend.
See, so it really does pay to be kind. If you've had a "pay it forward" experience chime in. I'd love to hear...
4 comments:
This is such a great thing. I was reading another blog where the girl said her family's meal was paid for last week. I guess there are a lot of really sweet people out there!
Isn’t it such a breath of fresh air when somebody actually does something kind? Awhile back we took the kids to the drive-inn and the line was really long. Another car had gotten out of line thinking he was getting into a new line that had opened up. Turns out it wasn’t a new line after all and he was trying to get back into the real line. We let him get in front of us and when we got up to the booth to pay the attendant told us the car had bought our tickets and said to say thank-you for letting him back into the line. It gave us the “warm fuzzys” and a renewed attitude to also pay it forward.
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Love this story! I despise taking the kids to restaurants!
Similar thing happened to my friend. She was out to dinner with her husband and three kids. A grandpa aged man was sitting near them, and he commented to them what a nice family they were. He left sooner than they did. When they asked for their bill the waiter said that "grandpa" had already taken care of it.
It does make you feel good to know that their are people like that in this crazy world.
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