You want a second dose?

I used to be like, super poor. Like homeless, sleeping in my car (I was ghetto fabulous amongst the hobo community), filling my water bottle out of the hose tap of gas stations and paying for a shower or two a week poor. Certainly could have been a lot worse, I somehow kept my job and got to eat most days, even if it was just something off the dollar menu, but rough days. There were a couple of times I thought I was going to break and I’d just sit in my car at night, especially in the California summer when my choices were leave the windows up and sweat to death or leave them down and sleep out on the street, and try not to cry because I couldn’t sleep more than ten or twenty minutes at a time. It was the smallest of gestures that kept me going forward back then. Little things from strangers.

So now I am very lucky. I make what is, to me, an absurd amount of money. I’ll do little things like buy a guy a big bottle of water, or pay for the mom with her three kids pizza. But a month or two ago I was filling up my work truck and some girl, maybe twenty years old or so, walked up and said something like I’m really sorry to bother you my mom and I are stuck here and is there any chance you could buy us a few dollars of gas?

I just said fuck it and filled up their tank. She broke down crying and gave me a big hug and they went on their merry way.

Five bucks or fifty. When times are hard the smallest of gestures go a long way. I think it’s good to pass that on when you can.