After work I headed north in a Honda Fit, loaded to the teeth with four other stoked 20-somethings and a trunk-full of ice climbing gear. We had planned to drive two hours north to spend the night but our plans fell through as we got into the car. We decided to drive north anyway and see what happens. If all else failed, we could sleep in the car.
Fairly quickly we decided that sleeping in the car was a bad idea so we diverted plans to head to Manchester, MA to our driver’s parent’s house to have a few beers, cruise the hot tub, watch a movie and crash, driving north the following morning. That plan seemed much better than sleeping in a cramped compact car stuffed to capacity. The past few times I’ve been to this friend’s parent’s house we’ve had a great time but we’ve managed to create a rather large ruckus in the process. I’m sure on one hand his parents were glad he was home, but on the other hand I’m sure they wanted us to settle down and go to bed sometime before 2am. So this time around I decided to bring a peace offering, or as today I’m calling it, a random act of kindness.
We stopped to get a few barley-based beverages and I asked my friend what his parents might like. He suggested a Cabernet Sauvignon. Without breaking the bank I picked one up. When we got to his parent’s house (interrupting their movie) we all said hello and I gave them the bottle of wine, partly out of kindness and partly to make up for all the nights we’ve kept them awake with our shenanigans. They were very surprised and graciously accepted, saying thank you many times with me responding, no no, thank you thank you.
They definitely would have no problem allowing their son and his friends to stay the night but I thought it was a nice gesture that I normally wouldn’t have done. They certainly weren’t expecting it so I’d say it was a decent random act of kindness for the day.
