Who is the stranger that you have only seen/meet once in your life that you still think about time to time?

YES! I love this story. My ex and I were driving back from PA through NJ. We lived in Boston at the time. Well, his car starting acting weird and we had to pull off in Newark. This was on memorial day. The car was fuming. We pulled into a HESS gas station. No repair shops in the area were open. We were quite obviously in a bad area as evidenced by all the run down buildings, bars on everything that was open, etc. The man at the gas station knew we needed help. So he said “Im here til the morning, I can watch your car overnight”. Out of options, we agreed and gave this man $50. So we flag a cab down and we are picked up by a guy named Manny. A sweet man. He didn't speak much English but we told him of our ordeal and he said “oh wrong place for a breakdown my friends”. I remember a cross swishing back and forth attached to his rearview mirror. He dropped us off at the train and we stayed the night in NYC. The next day we got back on the train first thing in the morning and headed back to Newark. We flagged another cab down and told the guy our car was “at the HESS”. He said “which one”. In our hurry outta there, we never got a location on the HESS. Turns out, there were several and not being from the area, we couldn't give landmarks. He drove us to one and when it wasn't the right one, kicked us out of the cab. It was pouring rain, we still had to find a place to fix the car, and we were exhausted. We ask several more people if they could help us and no one did. Our phones are dead, chargers are in the lost car. All of a sudden, someone honks- and who ever is it but freaking MANNY! He is smiling ear to ear and says “oh it’s you guys again!”. I think I cried. We got in with him, thanking him with our whole hearts. He said verbatim, “we all can be a guardian angel to someone, we just don’t know who that is going to be”. Then he dropped us off at the HESS and gave us the name of a friend who could help us fix the car who was right up the street. We gave him 50 bucks for a tip. Also, there was another man at the gas station who said “Ive been watching this car for you, my friend told me about you guys”. We got the car fixed by the cabby’s friend and he was also very helpful and kind. We finally left Newark. I still think about Manny and also the man who watched our car the whole evening. Very good people just helping strangers in a bind. My guardian angels on that long weekend in May 10+ years ago.

/r/AskReddit Thread