Caution & Love
I received a card in the mail where the envelope looked like this:
Yes, that's right, there's caution tape on the envelope. It was a Christmas card (glad I'm not the only one WAY WAY BEHIND) from my friend who was placed with her son over the summer. She is hands-down the most sensitive friend I have who is parenting after infertility. The card was beautiful, with some touching pictures of them with their son in early days, and an incredible short-form story of how they waited for him and brought him home and share him with his amazing birth parents -- it was super inclusive and very much "we're in this together" as opposed to "a magical stork dropped this baby in our laps, no history there." It made my day. Both for the adorable pictures of the baby (such a cutie) but because she is always thinking of how these things might impact me emotionally, sometimes to extreme lengths, but I will always appreciate her sensitivity. And the caution tape was real cute!
Baby Blockade
This is an annoyance. I went after school to my therapy appointment, and every so often when I go there's a family seeing another therapist in the waiting room and there's an adorable, cooing, sometimes shrieky baby with the grandma. I'm pretty sure that the baby isn't going into the session, so unclear why grandma has to watch the baby IN THE WAITING ROOM, but whatever. It's usually one of those "look everyone how cute this baby is, I'm going to spread out in this corner and make it impossible for the baby to not be the center of attention in a PSYCHOTHERAPY WAITING ROOM."
Well, today they were NOT in the corner, they were in the narrow walkway, and the stroller and the baby were well into the area I needed to pass to get to the little switches that tell your therapist when you've arrived, and two strangers were standing there cooing over the baby, and I cleared my throat BUT NO ONE MOVED. It was like, BEHOLD THE AMAZING BABY THAT NO ONE HAS EVER SEEN BEFORE, YOU CAN WAIT, SAD LADY. Then I just said "Excuse me, I need to get through" and busted my way through (without stepping on the completely adorable baby. It's not her fault her people are so clueless.).
It just annoyed me, this sense of entitlement and space-hogging and utter lack of consideration that some people with very young children can display in the most inconvenient of spaces.
There's the Good Karma!
I called the auto body shop this afternoon to set up how to pay for this dent-removal business. It was a strange start to the conversation:
"Hi, I'm Jessica, I think you saw a woman yesterday about an estimate for fixing a dent on the car door for a Ford?"
"Oh, yes, she called this morning!"
"Well, I'm the one whose car door hit her. I'm calling to see how we can work out the payment?"
"Oh, wonderful! I just think it's WONDERFUL that you left a note. You're a real honest lady, you know that? There ain't a lot of honest people out there anymore, so it was real nice to have someone like you do this for that other lady."
"Um, thank you! So...I saw the estimate is $482, do you want to call me when the work is done and I can figure out payment from there, drop by to pay it or whatever works for you?"
And this is where it got awesome.
"Well, she's not able to get in until next week, but you can pay the estimate amount, that's fine -- I left some fees off and stuff, I made it real conservative because you did such a nice thing and I didn't want to rob you or anything, I wanted to make this as pleasant for you as possible. So just pay the estimate amount whenever and if it's more when we do it don't worry about it."
WELL TICKLE ME PINK! How nice is that? I mean, nicer would be not having the wind hijack my car door and slam it into hers so I don't have to pay ANY money, but I'm so glad I don't have to wait around to see if it creeps up with the work or ends up a lot more expensive than the estimate. I am thrilled.
So I'm going to pay it Thursday, and then I can be done with this whole mess, feeling good about my moral virtue and helping people believe that there truly are good people in the world who will do the right thing.
That is nice. One good deed gets another. But I'm puzzled - won't your insurance cover this?
ReplyDeleteSo, I have a $500 deductible, so I may as well pay out of pocket. Whose behind a claim inspector coming out and estimating and lots more paperwork at possibly a rate hike... But it was nice to have an upside to this situation for sure!
DeleteGahhh don't even get me started on strollers!! I hated them even before infertility. And you're right about the sense of entitlement and lack of consideration that some people with young children have. Very annoying.
ReplyDeleteYay for good karma! I am so happy for you, but I am even happier for the strangers whose lives you touched (the car owner and the auto repair guy) and to whom you restored their belief in humanity. Priceless!!
So annoying, right? And yes, so wonderful to contribute to kindness in a not so kind world. ❤️
DeleteLet’s start with the annoying: can you complain the reception about Granny? I guarantee she is clueless that her babysitting in a patient’s waiting room is wildly inappropriate and it’s on them to have that conversation with the family. I would bring it up both with your therapist as well as with reception. Considering we just had to school another granny about not taking videos of our students (and she was shocked the was even a problem as informed consent never occurred to her) I know it needs to come from the staff.
ReplyDeleteHow lovely of your friend with the update and lovely of the auto body shop. It’s great they are rewarding you.
That is such a wonderful thing your friend did. I remember when our next door neighbor had her first child (after years of infertility and loss) and she still came over and hand delivered their Christmas card and told me his newborn pictures were on it before I opened it. It was very sweet and I displayed that card in my house for quite a while as a reminder of her kindness. It is nice to have friends who "get it".
ReplyDeleteI am happy to see that your good deed didn't go unnoticed and that not only was the lady nice and understanding about it but then she passed that info on to the body shop who decided to do something nice as well.
You are such a kind soul and I'm glad you seem to be getting that back in return.
I get irritated when anyone uses the waiting room for anything other than quiet waiting. Today I had an old man try to strike up a conversation with me. Do I look like I want to chat with a stranger? Babysitting in the waiting room is bizarre -- wouldn't she want to go to her house or a place where she could make noise and not bother the people around her?
ReplyDeleteI'm smiling so big about Thought 1 and Thought 3.
ReplyDeleteNot so much about the middle one!
You certainly deserved that kindness! Every now and then, a good deed begets a good deed. Good for you. ❤️
ReplyDeleteI am so happy to hear that your honesty was rewarded in kind! :)
ReplyDelete