Pay it Forward

The expression "pay it forward" is used to describe the concept of third party beneficiary in which a creditor who offers the debtor the option of paying the debt forward to a third person instead of paying it back (as defined by Wikipedia)

If you Google "pay it foward" you get results up to 10,100,000, including a link to a website called Random Acts of Kindess and of course the link to the movie in 2000 with it as the title. Which is one of my FAVOURITE movies and still causes me to go into the ugly cry.

All of the above brings me to this....last Thursday, the day after yet again another one of our storms. Steph got stuck trying to come down my street to pick me up for work. She asked a neighbour to help and he said turn your wheels back and forth and ignored her. She goes back to her car, very frustrated and still can't get the car out...all this time I'm in my warm house completely oblivious to the situation. When a passerby see's her, pulls over and get's her un-stuck :) She called me & asked me to walk up my street, I did, and off to work we went.

On to last night....yet another batch of snow. Steph is driving...again...we're almost home (about 10 minutes away) and the car in front of us starts to swerve, you see the break lights go on and she goes into a spin, into the snowbank. Steph pulls over, we go back to see if the driver is okay. It's an older lady (guessing 60's) and she's VERY shaken up. She's okay but upset. We tell her we're going to push her out of the snow...cause I really think she would have sat in her car all night in the snowbank crying. She's so shaken up that her car is in reverse first, then her wheels are still turned towards the snowbank instead of the road. Here's Steph and I in work clothes (not to mention me in 3 inch heels) and we're pushing. I'm thinking there's no way two of us are getting this car out (Steph is smaller than me) but the lady finally gives ample gas and I guess we found muscle from somewhere and we got her out.

She pulls onto the road and stops...she has her window down and is saying thank you, God bless. I'm pretty much yelling, you have to go there's car's coming. She listens but you can tell she's relunctant. She wants to keep thanking us but she's also VERY nervous about driving the rest of the way home. We stay behind her til we see her turn onto her street (we're assuming) and home we go.

Of course I cannot stop giggling....cause all I picture is me basically telling the lady that we're pushing her out and she doesn't have a choice. I'm laughing at Steph trying to tell her to turn her wheels to the road, and I'm laughing at her trying to thank us with the long line of traffic about to to be upon her.

We're almost home and I look at Steph and say...."Hey Steph! I guess you just did your pay it forward" To which she responds, yeah I guess I did :)

We certainly weren't hero's yesterday but it really did make us feel good to have done a random good deed. Your challenge today....do 1 act of random kindness.

Happy Wednesday!