Saturday, February 10, 2007

In case you had lost faith in humanity

Sure, there are lots of reasons to be cynical about your fellow (hu)man. Crime, war, random acts of violence...you name it. We get jaded and begin to think that it's a rare day when people do things that are nice, or selfless, or honest. Well, here's a little thing that helped restore my faith in humanity, just a little bit yesterday.

I was meeting a friend/church member at the Savory in Takoma Park for coffee yesterday morning and I parked at the Takoma Metro Station. I was in a rush (running late as usual) and I jumped out of my car, dashed over to the meter and dropped in my quarter. But when I did it made a strange sound, and I looked down to see that the part that catches and contains the coins (what in the heck do you call that thing? the bank?), well, it was broken. The front of the meter had broken off (or been broken off--who knows) and someone had just set it inside the meter. But the best part was that there was probably ten dollars in quarters in there, and no one had taken them!

When I saw that it was broken, I thought for a split second hey, I could take my quarter back! Just think about all the money I have put into broken meters and lost...It was like those old cartoons with the angel sitting on one shoulder and the devil sitting on the other, offering competing advice. But I was so impressed that so many other people had gone ahead and put their quarters into this broken meter, and that no one had taken this money. I mean it was just sitting there, begging to be carted off to washers, dryers and vending machines. So, I just paid my quarter, and went off to my coffee date. It's a little thing, I know, but the whole experience made me feel a little better about the human community afterall.

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