Random Acts of Kindness

Have you ever had some complete stranger show you a random act of kindness, and it stuck with you for a long time because you didn't even know this person?  Being so shy, I tend to stay disconnected from strangers.  Sure, I've had people perform stereotypical acts of kindness such as holding the door open or things like that which are all acts that are more than easy to perform and are pretty much just expected of everyone.  They don't really stick with you because chances are they'll happen to you more than enough times over the years.  I'm not trying to say anything bad about these acts of kindness.  They're definitely important and things that everyone should do.

But then there are random acts of kindness where a complete stranger goes above and beyond what's expected of them.  If you have a moment like that you'll remember it forever because it kind of shocks you that someone did that.

Like I said, I tend to distance myself from people, even people I know.  I don't really have any brilliant story where someone did something like that for me, which isn't surprising considering I keep my interactions with people as small as I can when out in public.  Even sadder though is the fact that I've never really done something like that for someone else.  I wish I could say I had, but I would be lying.

The best moment I can come up with where a complete stranger did something nice for me isn't really that mind-blowing, but I'll share this story anyway.  It was at LeakyCon last year.  (I have a feeling I'm thinking of it now because LeakyCon 2012 is happening now, and I'm sad I'm not there.)  It's no surprise that people at LeakyCon were absolutely great.  Harry Potter fans are just amazing.  But there was one woman dressed up as McGonagall who was walking around with a big bag of chocolate frogs.  And these weren't the chocolate frogs that you buy either.  These were homemade chocolate frogs that she'd made herself.  They even had a marshmallow filling.  What was she doing with them?  She had made a ton of this candy so that she could walk around the convention and just give them out to people.  She came up to my dad and me and just offered us some.  She was such a nice person, and her and my dad talked for a minute or so.  (Remember, I'm socially awkward, so my participation in the conversation was nothing more than me thanking her for the candy.)  I still remember that though.  I don't know how difficult it was to make those chocolate frogs, but I'm sure it took a decent amount of time, especially because of how many she seemed to have made.  And why did she do it?  Just because she wanted to hand them out to some complete strangers.

Obviously, that wasn't the most impressive moment ever.  She didn't do anything life-changing, but it was nice.  It's definitely a moment I've remembered, and it's not something I could see very many people doing.  It's just too bad there aren't more moments like that.