One Good Turn – Deserves Several More

How I became a certain lady and her husband’s special chauffer.

This story is true in all details that I can recall. I was walking out of a restaurant in Hampton this afternoon when I noticed a lady about 100 feet up the sidewalk who was waving frantically for me to meet her – as she was pushing a walker toward me. When we met, the words just tumbled out of her mouth in what seemed like desperation – as she told me she needed a ride home, which she said was just a short distance down Victoria Blvd. I wondered, but didn’t ask her, how she had gotten to this location. I figured she must have ridden the bus and was waiting for the bus to take her back home when she spotted me. On the way to my vehicle she said she would give me gas money, to which I replied I couldn’t’ take her money for a favor.

It was good that I was driving my SUV and not my little two-seater convertible, because no sooner had we gotten the lady’s walker into the SUV than she informed me that when we got to her house, she needed me to take her and her husband to the baby sitter’s place – and then bring them back to their house. I agreed and off we went. Shortly thereafter she borrowed my cell phone and made two calls. One was to her husband, and I heard her tell him that she would be home in two minutes. It seemed like an adventure to me and was enjoying the ride, and I suppose she was too, as she just chattered away – telling me some things I didn’t need to know.

The lady hit me with one more surprise when she told me she would need fifteen dollars more to pay the baby-sitter, so I gave her $15.00. Out of the clear blue sky she asked me if I was prejudiced to which I replied that I tried not to be. She then told me that her husband was a black man (she was white) and I told her I couldn’t think of a good reason to be concerned about that because it was between the two them. She got a kick out of that and laughed – telling me I was a good person.

. The remainder of the trip was uneventful. I know now that the lady had misrepresented the distance to her house from the restaurant and had then misrepresented the time it would take drive that distance to her husband. I won’t let that bother me even though the sandwich I had bought was not so hot by the time I finally got back home. It seems a little funny now – the way the lady kept adding favors she needed – and how she acted as if it was natural for me to agree to each one in turn.. I’ll probably never know whether the lady was grateful for my help, but I have no regrets and feel good about what I did and glad I could help her and her husband. I think I know how the “good Samaritan” must have felt.