Nice things you've done/Nice things someone has done for you

by **Thingy** 2011-03-09, 19:00

There's a lot of dicks in the world, massive, throbbing, selfish dicks. But occasionally you find this really good person, you know, someone who does something without expecting anything back. Doesn't matter if it's a tiny thing or something huge, or if it's you who is the selfish stranger or someone else.

Let's start with a very tame example. I was at COOP, one of the two local grocery stores, getting some groceries. Turned out I didn't have enough money, to be more exact, i was lacking 40-50 kr (4-5 Euro, 7ish-8ish USD), so I had to give something back. I decided to give back a bottle of Sodastream (small appliance you can use to make soda at home) flavoring. The guy behind me saw that I lacked 50kr, so he paid those last 50kr for me from his own wallet. I thanked him, and he proceeded to go on his way. It's not much, but hey, he could just have stood there and done nothing, but instead he decided to take 50 kr out of his pocket and pay for some insignificant item.

As for nicest thing I've done, It was in Alexandria only a couple of months ago. Most apartment buildings have a guy who does everything from small errands for the inhabitants of the building to greeting visitors and doing basic maintenance on the house (clean, keep vermin out and so on). Pretty much a combination of doorman and janitor.

These tend to get a small wage from the owner of the building (ranging from very small to sub par. it's illegal to raise the rent for inhabitants who moved in before the new laws were passed, which means pretty much everyone who lives in an old apartment building gets to pay like 50 EGP (5 Euro, 8USD) every month, which is rarely enough for even basic maintenance expenses) and a free place to live, so most of them are very poor, barely able to afford providing their family with 4 meals a day of basic food like fooul or tameya (the Egyptian version of a falafel. fucking delicious) and the other basics of Egyptian cuisine without the help of the building's inhabitants (which, fortunately, they often get. the inhabitants having to pay almost nothing for rent).

Now, the apartment building we were living in has a family of these. A normal core family (wife, husband, 3 kids) and an old man who I assume is their grandpa. The poor old man had recently been fired from his job, being too old to do all the errands and maintenance. He pretty much just walked around the house, doing pretty much nothing. Just walking around, occasionally crossing the road to walk on the seaside. It's a very sad sight, really.

So, one day, me and my family got some fetir. I'm not sure if i can explain what fetir is in a way that you would understand... But let's say it's like... Soft, thick bread that you can put all kinds of stuff on, it's mind boggingly delicious with cream and honey, sugar (which always melts on it, forming a layer of hot, melted sugar) and pretty much anything else. If you're ever in Egypt, get some from a street vendor. They're awesome when fresh.

Anyways, we ate some of it, but we just couldn't finish it all, so someone suggested we put it in the fridge till later. But for some reason, I remembered the old guy. I thought he probably couldn't afford it, being retired and all. So I put all the rests (still fresh, by the way) in one of the Styrofoam trays they came in and went down the stairs to look for him. He wasn't at the entrance, outside the house or on one of the 2 floors I passed on the way down. So I went up the stairs, to the top floor, thinking he might be up there. He wasn't. I thought ''alright, I'll go down one last time, if he's not there, fuck this''. I went down to the entrance again, and there he was. I handed him the tray, he said thanks, and I went back up to the apartment. Was pretty exhausted by the end of that ordeal, but I was glad the guy got to taste something else than fooul for once.

Holy shit that turned out to be longer than I expected... Oh well.

TL;DR: A guy payed for something that cost 5 euro and I couldn't afford at a grocery store. I gave some poor old dude fetir (Egyptian food, tastes awesome, buy if you ever visit Egypt) so he could taste something other than fooul and tameia for once.

by **Thingy** 2011-03-09, 20:13

Another one from Egypt.

It was a couple of months ago, we arrived in Cairo Airport and went to the luggage drop off to, you know, pick up our luggage. One of the dudes who help you with your luggage came joined us. We waited for a while, but our luggage never arrived (long story. we fucked up one of our flights because of confusing information on the plane and delays caused by Arlanda airport freezing over. had to do Sweden-Vienna-Rome-Egypt instead of Sweden-Vienna-Rome. Alitalia and Austrian Airlines fucked up communication i guess, so the baggage came 3 days late)

We went to the help desk (lots of people from our flight were there too, probably missed the Vienna flight like us). The line was pretty long, we had to wait for like half an hour at least, so we offered the guy like 20 EGP (the usual tip for baggage boys over there) for his time, despite him pretty much just having stood there and done nothing. He refused to take it and stayed with us instead, giving us hints on how to get our baggage back faster. For an example, they prioritize foreigners first and Egyptians last, we didn't know that, mom almost used her Egyptian passport. It would probably have taken over a week to get our stuff back if he hadn't said anything.

He didn't leave our side till we had filled the forms and everything, despite the fact that he could just have taken the 20 easy pounds we offered him and found someone else to help.

by **Thingy** 2011-03-10, 06:27

Let me guess, everyone's too lazy to read the whole thing?

:/

There's a TL/DR at the bottom, and the second post only takes like a minute to read.

Or has no one done something above societal standards to a stranger/ vice versa?

by **JPB18** 2011-03-10, 08:12

I was sleeping when you posted this, so...

Yes, a lot of people helped me, and done nice things for me in the last 2/3 years. And so I've done...

For example, in the last week, before carnival, the colleagues from Commerce Technics were presententing their reports on their internship. I had a colleague who was unable to speak when presentating... I ended up 8 hours in a row with her trying to get her to remember her own presentation... She then had a few incidents during the presention, but she was able to get a nice grade out of it...