Chasing the Wind

I wouldn’t normally post this except I’m amused. 😛

Coming home from church last night (the 2nd of four Advent studies), I stopped to fill up with gas. Swipe my card, fill up, swap the windows, hang up the nozzle, get back in the car…

And a young woman interrupts just before I close the door. “Excuse me,” she says.

Her story is she’s out of gas; her car is parked right next to mine, rear window bashed out, her car doesn’t look in the best shape. Besides being out of gas, she’s out of money and so she’s stranded, unable to go anywhere. She has a partially used book of first class stamps and she wants to know if she can trade some stamps for a dollar or two for some gas.

“It’s ok,” I tell her. “Let’s fill your car up to the top.”

Her eyes get wide. “Are you kidding? That would be $20!”

“Then you better start pumping,” I grin. “Sounds like it’s going to take a while.” I swipe my card on her pump. She must have asked a half dozen times if I’m sure, if I’ll take her stamps, am I sure, please take her stamps. I tell her no, if I can help her, especially at Christmas, then it’s God giving me a chance to help and I’m glad to be a part of it. “God bless you and Merry Christmas.”

“Are you sure you won’t take these stamps?” She asks.

“I don’t have any letters to mail,” I smile. “I’m blessed with a chance to fill up your tank. Why don’t you find somebody that needs to mail a letter and bless them. 🙂 ” (By the way, I don’t do that 🙂 emote in person, that’s just an online thing.) The fillup costs $19 and some change, I get back in my car and head home with a big smile on my face. It looks like this: 🙂 .

Normally I wouldn’t bother sharing that story, except the story didn’t end there.

I hit the gym today after work, deal with the humbug Ms. Nohelp sweepstakes lady, then home to shower and blog. My message light is blinking and I have 2 messages.

The first one is Citibank with an automated message about “Early Fraud Alert.” I call them back and they read off the latest charges. The service guy says, “Here’s what triggered the fraud alert. Did you fill up twice at the same gas station within 5 minutes?”

Er, yup, that was me. I give him the condensed story which he thinks is the best Christmas story he’s heard this year. 🙂 He says he’ll unlock my account. “Unlock?” I ask.

“Yes, when we couldn’t get hold of you right away, we froze your account. Don’t worry, it’s active again.”

I thank him, hang up, and retrieve message number two. It’s from an online store where I had ordered a present for my brother-in-law. He may read Chasing the Wind occasionally, so let’s just say I ordered a Gizmo from Gizmos-R-Us. The message says they were unable to complete my order because my credit card account was frozen and to please call them tomorrow or my order will be cancelled.

Heh. No good deed goes unpunished, they say. Still, I’d do it all again the same way… except maybe a week earlier so I still get the Gizmo in time for Christmas. 🙂