A Little Love In The Day (Randyjw; November 7, 2022)
Before proceeding to the library, as would be my usual “routine,” I decided to hang out for awhile with someone at the bus stop. She said she was waiting for her “runner” – someone who acted as her feet (she’s in a wheelchair) to collect and bring her money that she receives on a regular basis. He does this out of the goodness of his heart, asking and receiving no payments from her, in return. I decided I could wait around with her until that time, we each keeping the other company, chatting and smoking cigarettes until he showed up.
A few other people had come and gone from the bus stop — one being a woman who had barely registered in my peripheral vision, and then who had left.
Her runner was, unfortunately, running late… but, no matter. We continued to chat, when along had come a man who had sat down on the bench near us, just hanging out. As he sat there, he noticed a telephone sitting on the bench beside him. Both myself, and the woman I was speaking with, thought it had probably been left behind by a family of four, who had already departed the bus terminal.
So, we three spoke about the situation, and what to do about it. He was a computer programmer, but the phone had a security pin and could not be gotten into due to such, and so no contacts on it could be called to alert the phone’s owner that it had been left behind at the terminal.
Eventually, the phone rang via one of its apps, and the man was finally able to answer it. He assured the frantic phone owner that he would be waiting for her return at the bus terminal, where she had left it.
In the interim, the runner showed up with the money for the wheelchair-bound woman, and then left the scene. It is an incredible thing he is doing for her, myself meanwhile having learned (confidentially) about his own particular situation – I really must say.
My friend was grateful and offered to take me to lunch, but I really hadn’t the energy for it, didn’t really want to use her money, and am recuperating from a cold. But it was really sweet of her to offer. Meanwhile, earlier this morning, she had told me that she had found a misplaced thermos bottle of someone she believed she knew it had belonged to and was holding it for her. After quite a long while had passed, someone emerged from a bus, which she identified as the lady who had misplaced her thermos bottle. As it turns out, the individual was not the person to whom the thermos belonged, but she did know who its owner was, and let my friend know – who would hold onto it until such time that she could return it to her.
My friend had a locket, which was all tangled up; a very pretty blue-and-purple crystal heart, which she wanted to wear with a better-quality chain than that with which it had come. I was able to untangle it for her; and she was really happy about that and about retrieving the single hair-tie that it had been wrapped around, as that was the only hair-tie that she had.
As it turned out later on, the woman who gratefully retrieved her telephone had been the single, individual woman I had hardly noticed earlier (although I realized, after a time, that I have seen this woman before). The computer programmer had looked almost homeless, himself (as both myself, and the woman in the wheelchair are), although he stated that this type of thing (sitting around the bus stop) was not actually his “life.” He had some better things he could be doing presently with his time, other than this… and he could have used a second phone, he said, as a computer screen, which would have made his transactions faster. Both these things he had mentioned prior to the woman having called. In the event that an owner had been unable to be located, and despite the tempting possibilities dangling before him, he continued to wait for her. All of our reward was the joy in seeing the owner show up and be reunited with her phone.
The phone’s owner gave him some money, and gave some additional money to him to give to my friend, who was now rolling toward her bus to take her to a mall, where she wanted to purchase some food and some things. My friend got to get her “heart” back, have her reliable runner show up with her money, so that she could do so, and receive some additional money for her lunch (a lunch she had wanted to share with me from her own money, before anything had been said and done); the runner received his joy from doing so; the computer programmer received his joy, and a small reward, from the phone owner; the phone owner got to see our happy faces and know that homeless people are not always so bad, after all (plus, she said “her life” was on that phone); I received much joy from the comfort of a little friendship and good deeds being done — and it’s been a great day!
News Notes 1 