Not so long ago, I was driving with a friend from Berkeley to Marin County. I waited patiently to pay my toll; I'd let my FasTrak account expire, so I needed to pay cash, the old fashioned way.
As I pulled up at the booth and handed over the money, the toll taker waved my cash away. You don't need to pay, he said. Those people, in front of you, they paid for you.
Surely there was some mistake, I remonstrated. I wasn't driving in a caravan. There wasn't anybody up ahead of me who might have paid for me.
"Are you sure they paid for me?," I wondered to myself as I sat there. The toll taker was impatient and urged me to drive on.
My first thought was that someone I know must have passed me on the road and they were doing me a good turn, a nice way to say hello. I raced ahead, trying to figure out who it might have been. I peered carefully at each car, looking to see which of my friends or colleagues had kindly paid my toll for me. I started to feel a bit irritated. Why hadn't they slowed down so I could figure out to whom I owed my thanks?
Then I realized ā my passenger was a woman. Surely someone was doing the automotive equivalent of buying her a drink.
But that didn't make any sense. She was in a car with me. And she wasn't driving. And, anyway, people don't buy strangers drinks without hoping at least for the chance of a smile and eye contact.
I was so wrapped up in my musings that I missed our exit and ended up driving a good 10 miles before I realized we were lost.
And that's when it hit me: A stranger had paid my toll for me.
[For more of this story, written by Alva Noe, go to http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/...dom-acts-of-kindness]
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