Random Act Of Kindness

Last week we were eating at our new favorite pizza place and a man came up to our table and handed Stephen a gift card. He mumbled something about "it has $35 on it, but their machine was not working, thanks for your service" {Stephen was in uniform}. He quickly walked away. We thought it was originally a $35 card, and he was giving us the change that was left on it. Still a nice gesture.

We thought nothing more of it until yesterday. Yesterday the pizza place posted this on their Facebook page:

“So we had a family eating at one of the outdoor picnic tables and the dad was dressed in his military uniform... Another man walks in and buys a $35 gift card and then walks outside and hands the card to the soldier and says Merry Christmas and thanks for your service and then walks away... Huge brownie points to this man for the anonymous gesture!!! God... I love this country”

I called Stephen and asked him to check the gift card out, that the restaurant was posting about it on Facebook and it should have $35 on it. He looked into it, but the card was originally bought in June and had $10 on it. Some was spent in June, and the card was zeroed out in October. Talk about confusion.

I went back and forth for an hour with myself about contacting the company. I decided to contact them so they would know there was a mistake. Maybe their machine WAS down, or the man was just mistaken. I emailed them and explained that we were that family they were talking about on Facebook and that we had checked the card and it had nothing on it. I said that maybe the man was mistaken (like he had 2 cards, and gave us the wrong one maybe) or maybe their machine messed up. I was not expecting anything in return, just wanted them to know, incase their machines were malfunctioning.

Imagine my surprise when the owner of the company replied and said “I would love to fix this for you. The man did buy the card and we must have messed up somehow”. There was a new gift card waiting for us in the register.

I don’t really know why I am sharing this story other than to praise the anonymous man who gifted us with the card and also to praise the restaurant for fixing a mistake. It was such an odd thing, the man mumbling and handing the card over and leaving just as quickly as he came, then the restaurant posting about it almost a full week later and being so willing to fix something that they did not have to do.

We are so blessed by people in our lives, be they anonymous or ones we know.

Thank you to everyone.