Of Rantings and Kindness

I guess now's a time as good as any to bury those who dare oppose me and spoil me day with nastiness.

Goodness is about character - integrity, honesty, kindness, generosity, moral courage, and the like. More than anything else, it is about how we treat other people.

Dennis Prager

They say that kindness comes from the unlikeliest of places. This was perhaps made more clear to me today, on a day when I was sick and struggling around with getting through the day. To be honest, I was quite overwhelmed by the unusual kindness presented to me within a short evening, from three unlikely individuals on two separate occasions.

For those who know me, I'm a very independent person who's not likely to ask for help. Perhaps some part of it lies in me keeping mostly to myself but that's a story for another time.

For the first part, I was pushing an entire bag of plumerias on my trolley when some person bumped extremely hard into me and caused the plumerias to fall onto the ground, bruise and break. The (TOXIC!) sap also got splattered onto my arm and some nearly went into my eye. Definitely a huge no-no since the sap can cause severe skin irritations and blindness.

The person had the cheek to glare and me as if I was the one who'd bumped into me. And I would have smacked the person with a plumeria branch if he'd decided to pick on me further, considering my arm was hurting from the contact with the plumeria sap and a rash was coming out.

Thankfully, he stormed off.

Then this old man decided he ought to be "helpful" by shouting out instructions on how to transport my plumeria branches - by putting them into a container I'd be passing to Starbucks.

Needless to say that was not an option. Toxic sap and coffee don't go together. Thanks for the embarrassment too. Everyone was simply sitting there, on the bus, and staring at me or gesticulating and me and laughing about the whole thing.

I would've been overwhelmed by the whole situation if not for a kind soul who came by to help me hold my trolley and help me hold the bag open for me to toss in the mangled pieces.

My momma always told me to clean up after myself after all, even if the mess and pain and injury was caused by a**holes.

So this kind soul was not someone you'd consider popular guy material. Tall, lanky, geeky with the weirdest teeth. Definitely the kind you'd find picked on in school. But you know what? I'll probably remember this guy for his kindness far more than every other "good-looking" or "socially acceptable" person I come across. Or the loud old man.

Later that night, I was struggling with an electric kettle (bless the kind soul who donated it for the tuition centre and kids!), my trolley, my body bag and a huge tub of used coffee grounds.

And I'm on the bus.

And everyone was glaring at me as if I have offended their entire line of ancestors for bringing a full trolley onto the bus.

Then this woman snapped at me to go back to the Philippines.

First of all, I'm a Singaporean Chinese with Singaporean parents. Secondly, what's up with the xenophobia? An elitist mindset doesn't make you more of an honourable Singaporean citizen or human being.

Anyways, I ignored her but I was immensely annoyed. Then, this kind man (he looked like a Bangladeshi national) gave up his seat for me to sit and arrange my stuff. And another old man helped me to hold my trolley while I settled down.

So, an overall crappy day with people rearing their ugly sides while I was sick from all the ashes and haze but those moments of kindness definitely made it a whole lot better.