The lady was distressed. On the phone, with quiet intensity, she was pleading with someone to give her a ride home.
Anyone passing would have looked away. Many did. She stood on the sidewalk, as the sun was setting on a long and tiring day, and people walked past her, looking anywhere but at her. No one wanted to admit that they could hear her frustration. Certainly no one wanted to be seen to be watching her, in this very public space, have a very private moment of complete frustration and despair.
They were though, watching. I could see the eyes flicker back, even while they pointedly tried to look anywhere but at her as she tucked her phone away, slumped against a grubby wall and buried her head in her hands for a moment.
"Can I help you?"
She didn't need help, no thank you, with much straightening of collars and smoothing of hair. She would figure something out, it was fine.
"Are you sure? I don't mind, if you need a ride home....?"
Surprise and the Canadian dismissal of any need for help, a hold-over from our British stiff upper roots. It was fine, she was fine.
"I see that you are fine, but in case you aren't, I'd like to help. Let me help you."
Another dismissal, this time with a hint of suspicion. Her son had forgotten her and taken the car to the city, her husband was working the midnight shift. She'd find a Tim's and wait for him to get off work, in a few hours. She couldn't accept. Really.
No one likes to admit they need help. It's hard for us to say those words. It's seen as a weakness, an admission that things are not okay and that they have progressed so far past okay that it feels sometimes as though the world may never again get back to a place where just being okay is... fine.
Admitting things are less than fine is an act of bravery beyond measure.
I waited for a heartbeat or two, just waited...
"Are you sure?"
She wasn't. We walked to the Volvo together and she hesitated at the passenger door. Was I sure I didn't mind?
"Not at all, you've had the same long day I have. Let's get you home."
We chatted about The Job for a bit. Shared the same disbelief at some of the Calls of The Day, laughed at the impressions of Favourite Callers. Every few minutes she would ask, was I certain it wasn't too far, too late, too long?
After I dropped her off, after many thanks, I had a quiet drive home to the edge of town.
It is very hard for me to admit this but I really, really needed her to say yes.
This small, kind thing took about 15 minutes out of my day. It cost me nothing but it meant a great deal. Not just to the lady who got to rest her feet on her own sofa, with her dog and her tea and forget about the horrible 9 hours she had just spent getting called a stupid, lazy, useless mindless drone. It reminded me that I used to do small, kind things all day long, because I've had the great good fortune to live and work in places where the time could be taken to do these things for others.
These tiny kindnesses were as much selfish as they were selfless. They made me feel valued, feel good. About myself and the communities I've called home. I liked the thought of living in place where people cared enough about each other to do decent, thoughtful things without a second thought.
When your job is to be the complaints department for an entire country, it's easy to lose sight of what it is that keeps you grounded, keeps you you. I am not certain when I stopped doing these things, here in this funny little town, working for The Client, but I needed that lady to say yes, just as much as she needed the ride.
I like me. Funny, quirky, weird, a fantastically incandescent wit with a brain the size of a planet, humble; these are all words people have used to describe me over the years. And that's fine. Good, even.
But I've always just tried to be kind and I nearly forgot how.
In the words of the great philosopher M.J. Blige... "we don't need no hateration, holleration, in this dancery."
