Call it the Burger King Christmas miracle. A stranger bought lunch for me and the wife today.
It happened not on 34th Street, but in the drive-through lane at the Westwood BK, which I’d occupied for maybe 10 minutes thanks to an unlikely rush at 2:30 p.m.
No problem. I’m a new, more patient guy these days and I’d promised to bring home something for us to eat since my wife was about to make more cookies – she’s always making cookies!
When it finally was my turn to yell into the ordering microphone, I asked for two chicken parmigiana sandwiches. This puzzled the guy. Memo to self: Got to call it Italian chicken sandwich in the future.
The rest of the order was made without difficulty.
But it was me who was soon to be the puzzled one. As I reached the pay window, money in hand, the pleasant woman there told me there was no charge, the woman in the car ahead of me had paid for my order.
I was temporarily speechless, a condition I’ve heard about but am not really familiar with firsthand. As I stammered, the woman continued it was a pay-it-forward gesture.
Although definitions vary, basically the pay-it-forward philosophy is if you are the beneficiary of a good deed, you should gift another with a similar act. They do the same. Wash, rinse, repeat.
The employee volunteered that it happened more than you’d believe and she thinks it’s a really nice gesture. “Your lunch is free today,” she said.
Because I’m wired the way I am, my mind raced for context.
It would have been nice to have thanked the woman, but she and her Cadillac were long-gone.
I also would have liked to have known if perhaps she had taken pity on me due to me driving the wife’s older, rusted Ford Focus, not her pristine, low-mileage Pontiac Grand Prix GT. Plus, I’m old. So it could be the woman figured I could really use some economic relief.
Pondering the matter further, I speculated that this could be a karmic response to the wife’s generosity. As mentioned earlier, she bakes a lot of cookies, particularly for Christmas although this latest batch is for a party.
Regardless, Christmas cookie platters are widely dispensed to friends and family, not to mention neighbors on our street who act civilly toward us.
Cookie platters and other assorted sweets also are highlights of a union Christmas party we attend, where they are offered as raffle prizes.
As I’ve told my wife often, she’s a much better person than I am. It could be that by me offering to bring home something to eat, I indirectly benefited from her generosity with cookies and the like.
She’s the kind of person who once gave a bouquet of flowers to a little girl who was helping her dad shop for groceries because the mother was ill. My wife had noticed the father and the girl often in the store and felt obliged to acknowledge the girl’s actions.
So, perhaps for those acts, or due to other reasons I cannot call to mind readily, we got the proverbial free lunch today. At least it was free to us.
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