Smushmusements

I have witnessed three random acts of kindness in the past day and a half. This is uncommon in New York any day… but 3 times in less than 2 days?

1. I am on the subway at night – diligently ignoring everyone around me and listening to all REM albums on shuffle (can’t go wrong) – when an older, cracked out woman limps her way onto the R train and sits across from me. I can see from her exaggerated body movements that her ankle is in pain. The girl next to me immediately whips out her purse and produces a bottle of Tylenol. “You want an asprin?” she asks loudly. The cracked out lady says “Yea. Thanks.” The exchange is made. I am dumbfounded.

2. This morning a big sort of scary lookin dude gets on the train (did I just use dude seriously?) and he has a bike with him. He tries to balance the bike on the pole in front of his 3 seater. The train jolts forward and his bike starts wheeling away. He grabs it. “Phew, that was a close one huh?” he tries to say to me with his eyes. I look away. I’m still scarred from my last incident with trying to relate to strangers. Hypocritical of me? Absolutely. Then he takes out a sandwich, and I’m mostly staring out the window at the passing patterns of concrete, but when I do glance over he is always having some sort of trouble. He is dropping a piece of lettuce, or a section of newspaper, etc. Eventually a girl sits next to me. I glance over at the scary dude and he has just spilled some of his coffee on the seat. With lightning fast reflexes, girl next to me produces a napkin as if from nowhere and lunges forward to come to the man’s aide. “Thanks!” he says. And begins mopping up the mess. What is this world coming to?

3. I am exiting the local McDonalds (I had a moment of weakness today that I scarcely allow myself to have. Sue me.) and as I’m leaving I see that there is a bit of a confused little shuffle going on at the door between about 4 different people, all trying to decide who is holding the door to let someone in or out and who is accepting the gesture. There are 2 sets of doors. The innermost ones have to be opened, but one of the outer doors is propped. I wait for the shufflers to move away. I see the clear path. I open the inner door for myself and as I approach the outer door, a guy comes from the outside, and upon seeing me there, about to walk out, he does a little panicky dance and proceeds to hold the open door open for me. Chivalry isn’t dead, but it’s not too bright either.

I’m such a bitch.

That is all…