Last Thursday I was approaching my office door with keys in hand, briefcase in tow, and quite a few care packages tucked under my arm. As I tried balancing my latte on my French-style door handle, I was rewarded for this very bad decision by my drink plummeting to the freshly waxed linoleum and spreading in a four-foot oblong pattern across the heavy traffic area of our hall.
Returning from my second restroom trip with twenty yards of paper towels flowing behind me, I was met with this image…
A young male student with strawberry-blonde curly hair held somewhat in place by a hippie-style, braided headband was on his hands and knees. His gold-rimmed, 70s style glasses were slightly odd-angled on his still-pubescent face and he was working diligently, cleaning up my mess.
As I approached he greeted me in a very “duuuude” voice, “These paper towels aren’t very ab-sor-bent.”
We mopped together in silence for a minute, he left and then returned again with a huge wad of toilet paper.
“THIS stuff was made for ab-sor-bency, riiiight?” He held out the wad of toilet paper as though he had just bagged a trophy.
I grinned, agreed, and we had everything cleaned up in another minute.
With the last few finishing swipes of a wet rag to clean up any sticky residue, I looked up and said, “Bless you for all your help (I almost ended that statement with “,dude”) – I really appreciate that.”
He stood up, shifted his huge backpack and said, “Yur wel-come…have a guh-rate week.” After adjusting his glasses and flashing a lopsided smile, he walked down the now dry hallway.
I found myself parroting his voice in my head as I watched him leave: “That dude is paying it for-ward.”
I smiled, and started my day.
[kelly]
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