Give Grace and Practice Patience

I was on my way to meet a friend for some fondue earlier today. I was running a little late since I hadn’t factored in traffic towards the city. When I got to the light, there was only one car in front of me. I followed it to the toll ahead where there were two lanes: one to use with a pass, and one with a pass or coins. We were both in the lane to go to the pass/coin lane, so I stuck with it thinking no one does the coins anyway. Well, the car in front of me came to a complete stop at the toll gate.

I waited a few seconds before saying some stress-relieving language out loud to myself. A full minute must have gone by, with me becoming even more irritable, before I saw a teenage boy get out of the driver side. Immediately I felt like a jerk; the poor kid was clearly helpless. I saw a five-dollar bill in his hand as he looked at the coin bucket, then turned around to give me an “I’m sorry for the hold-up” wave before getting back in his car. A few more seconds went by before he jumped back out and ran over to me with the five-dollar bill.

“I am so sorry, I have no change,” he says. “Do you have any I could use?”

“Sure,” I say. “How much is it?” and as I see it’s $1.50, I scrounged for some quarters.

“Here you go,” I handed him the money. The poor kid looked at it in his hand, looked at his five-dollar bill, and looked back again at the change.

“Keep it” I said.

This kid let out one of the most releasing sighs I had ever heard, like I’d just bailed him out of jail and promised not to tell his parents.

“Thank you so much, you’re an angel” he said, running back to his car before throwing the change in the bucket.

As I drive past them down the highway, he blew me a kiss while his passenger, another teenage boy, waved.

“Goofy kids” I thought, but I couldn’t help feeling good that I had been able to help, but bad at the same time that my initial reaction had been one of frustration. I didn’t know they were in need, why did I jump to that? Suddenly I was grateful for the small reminder that you never know what is going on in someone’s life, and maybe you just need to give grace and practice patience.

I continued my drive down the highway, sipping my coffee and listening to my tunes. Maybe 20 minutes had gone by before I came up to another toll. I had more options for lanes this time, but again, I was already in one of the pass/coin lanes. As I rolled up, I couldn’t believe it; I threw my head back and laughed. Already out of the car, stopped at the toll gate in front of me, was the passenger of the car I had passed…the car I had bailed out at the last toll, and here comes this kid waving and running over to me, five-dollar bill in hand.

“I have no more change for you!” I said as I rolled my window down laughing. The kid looked so disappointed.

“Oh, really?” he said looking worried.

“This one is three-dollars, I only have two more quarters.”

“No waaayyyy” the kid said running his hand through his hair. “Okay, well thank you.”

“You know you can just drive through the toll, right?” I said to him as he was turning to leave.

“Wait what?” he looked back at me like I’d just cracked the code. “What do you mean? Wait, will it give us a ticket? This is my friends car, I don’t want to give him a ticket.”

I thought to myself “aw, that’s nice” at the same time as I thought “wait, you just bashed his passenger door into the stone wall as you were getting out to run over here…” I guess it’s the thought that counts.

“No, it won’t give you a ticket. What happens is it sends the bill for the toll and sometimes a small fee to the address that the car is registered to. You can just pay it online.”

He looked at me in disbelief and relief and said “Oh really? thank you so much! We’ll do that.” And off he went.

I felt good; in less than an hour I was taught something while also teaching someone else something. A small reminder that we may not know what’s going on in someone else’s life, and that on its own should be enough to give the benefit of the doubt. Best $1.50 I ever spent.