After having my staple veggie burger and fries at
Burger King, I was contently walking back to my car. This red SUV stops right in front of me and a lady cries out to me. She was a latin american in her late thirties. Well, Southern California abounds in the mexican population and half of them can only converse in Spanish. You see them every where you go and they think that every one on this planet knows spanish and they start conversing with you in it.
It didnt take me long to pick up "Sorry No Espanol" (Sorry No Spanish) and politely decline if someone threw those alien words at me.
So I was taken by surprise when that lady asked if I knew English (Well I wonder of what origin she thought I was...). She was in tears (almost), looked helpless. My first thoughts were that she probably was lost and needed some directions to a place. But it turned out to be more grave. She said she had gone to the hospital to visit her sister and had forgotten her purse in the car. When she got back, it was
Gone. And she was stranded, her credit cards, her cell phone etc all was in her purse. Then she opens the back door of her car and there was a 2-3 year old baby sitting in its carriage and crying and another girl in her teens looking helplessly at me. The lady continued that her house is a couple of hours drive away and the baby needs to be fed and changed. She asked for money to buy diapers and milk for the baby.
Coming from Bombay, where you run into street urchins asking for money; I have developed a thick skin and don't relent easily. But in this case, the baby who was all soiled in her diapers, hungry for milk and hot in the sun, melted by heart.
I didnt want to simply give money and walk out (I didnt have enough cash on me, is another story). I wanted to make sure. There was a store,
Albertsons in the same block, I offered that she could come in with me and buy what she needed for her baby. She instructed her little girl to go with me while she waited outside in her majestic car. We picked the diapers and some bottled milk and I paid with my credit card. I walked the girl back to her car, the lady thanked me and asked if I could also help put gas in her car as her house was couple of hundred miles away and had less than a quarter tank. She promised to repay back, by sending out a cheque or money order.
I gave in, and drove with her to the nearby gas station, helped her fill half a tank. She asked for my address and telephone number. I am somehow not too comfortable giving my cell number to strangers, so address was a little far fetched but it wasnt a paltry sum to let go as charity. I asked for her name, address and contact number and only after that I disclosed my office address and telephone number :)
She dropped me back to my car and promised to call me back once she reached home. I felt a satisfaction within of having helped a needy person. Reached office to a fuming boss who was fretting that I took forever for lunch.
Well hours went by, when I reached home and was changing my work clothes, I found the piece of paper in my pocket that had her number and address. She had not yet called and I started to worry if all was fine.
I decided to call her up to check. Changed my phone settings not to display caller id and dialed. No one answered. Now I didnt know what to think of it. I opened yahoo maps and typed in her address and it returned "
street not found". Google maps gave the same answer. Retried her number. I started growing restless. I wanted to confirm my doubts. After several tries one old man answered. I asked for this lady and he replied
Wrong number and kept the phone.
Here I am yours truly, naive and innocent, decided to do a noble cause but there aint any goodness left in this world.
