Last Thursday had been a very trying day for me.
The day started off on the wrong foot, so much so that by the time lunchtime hit, all I wanted to have to do was to go pick up lunch, come home, relax in the cool air and enjoy a quiet lunch with my mom.
So, I headed to a local fast-food restaurant. The wait was a little longer than I would have preferred, but I knew it was the time of day when everyone was out to get a quick bite to eat, so I didn’t think too much about it.
I got to the window and had to wait for my order for a good five minutes. I thought it was somewhat odd considering I ordered pretty standard fare, but I was patient as I sat in the car in near-100-degree heat (thank goodness for A/C!).
The order was handed to me and I noticed right away that I was missing an item — the second drink I ordered. I had to explain a couple of times to the person at the window before it clicked and they made my second drink.
After that, I decided to pull into a parking spot to double-check the bag itself to make sure what I ordered was in it.
It wasn’t.
Annoyed, I grabbed the bag, got out of the car, went inside and told the cashier, who could barely be bothered, what happened.
A full 10 minutes later, I had the one food item I was missing.
I went back to the car to head home, and … it wouldn’t start.
“How could this happen?” I wondered, my frustration building. It had been running just fine 10 minutes ago when I had been checking the order.
After a few minutes, I called AAA, where I was put on an endless automated loop until I finally got a customer service rep. They assured me someone would be out ASAP to give my car what I thought it needed — a jump-start.
While I waited, I had the car door open because sitting in the car in the baking sun was not an option.
Then I happened to glance at the wait time for my AAA service.
Two hours. At that point, I muttered things to myself that are not repeatable here.
There was no way I could wait there for two hours. My mom, for whom I am a caregiver, was waiting at home for me and the food. She assured me she was fine, but though she might have been, I was not.
It was at that point I got out of my car and was prepared to walk over to a local mechanic shop which was right next door. Surely they had someone there who could jump my car off?
But before I got there, a man parked who was parked two spaces over from me, who I had heard talking on and off throughout my adventure in the parking lot, stuck his head out the window and asked me if everything was OK.
By that point, the sweat was pouring and my sob story about what happened was, too.
He offered to look under the hood and give my car a jump-start. But as it turns out, it didn’t need it. A battery connector was loose and once he tightened it, the car started just fine.
I thanked him profusely and went on my way, also thanking God that he put that man in my path that day. It was a reminder that there are still some good people left in the world, people with no agenda other than simply to help another person.
Thank God for Good Samaritans.
North Carolina native Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym Sister Toldjah and is a media analyst and regular contributor to RedState and Legal Insurrection.
