Stuck Under a Baby

Tag: kindness of strangers

  • The Kindness of Strangers Experiment: Pizza Delivery to My Car

    How many times have you been stuck in the car with a sleeping child while wishing you could run errands, get something (anything) accomplished, or go into a store or restaurant while he or she napped? In my case, it’s almost daily.

    Although I’m not proud of it, I have had my fair share of drive through fast food over the last few months. This is due to the fact that many of my kids’ naps involve me driving in circles for hours while they snooze in the back seat. During these hours of driving aimlessly, I have had a lot of time to think about a whole lot of nothing such as why aren’t there any drive through pizza joints or Chinese food places?

    This brings me to my first experiment in my Kindness of Strangers series: Pizza Delivery to My Car.

    It was lunchtime and we were out and about. My 3 year old wanted pizza for lunch and we were headed to get some when my baby daughter fell asleep in the car earlier than expected. Since neither of my children transfer well, I couldn’t bring the car seat in to the pizza place and expect her to remain asleep. I was trying to come up with a plan. My first idea involved picking up my husband at work, driving him to the pizza place, getting him to buy a slice for my son, and having a picnic in the parking lot before returning him to his office. Somehow, I didn’t think that would go over very well. The next plan involved driving home and ordering pizza to be delivered to the house, but for only two slices, it just didn’t seem like the best choice (and it probably would have taken too long). As I was working on my next crazy idea, I looked in the rear view mirror to discover that my son was now sleeping too. Figures.

    Although his nap bought me some time, I was now starving and knew that I would not be able to wait the two hours or so until they woke up to first have lunch. And of course, I now had pizza on the brain, so that was all I wanted to eat. But, other than leaving my kids unattended in the car (which I would never do), the words that kept running through my head were “What’s a girl gotta do to get a slice around here?”

    I remembered that the pizza place close to my husband’s office has a big, glass front and there is a loading zone right in front. I thought. I pondered. I wondered. I pulled in.

    I took out my smart phone and looked up their phone number. I called.

    “Hi!” I said to the gentleman in the white t-shirt and apron at the other end of the phone. “I’m right outside of your restaurant in the gray SUV.” I waved and noticed the inquisitive look on his face. “My kids are both sound asleep in the car and, since I can’t leave them alone, I was wondering if it might be possible to get two slices delivered to my car.”

    “Uh… okay. I guess so,” he replied, and I watched as our two pieces got placed in the oven to be warmed up.

    I scrambled around looking for enough spare change to be able to pay him in cash. I figured it wasn’t quite fair to make him run back and forth just to swipe my credit card. When my food was ready, I watched him gather napkins, my slices, some plates, and plastic utensils. I planned on meeting him half-way, but of course, dropped some of the coins on the floor of the car as he made his way towards my car. I picked up the coins and found him right next to the driver’s side window. I rolled my window down, took the food, and handed him money for the pizza plus whatever extra I had (it wasn’t much, unfortunately) as a tip.

    I thanked him profusely, waved goodbye to him once he was back behind the counter, saw him smile and realize that he did a good thing, and drove off with the smell of cheesy goodness filling the car.

    Many, many thanks to the kindness of this stranger.

  • The Kindness of Strangers Experiment (Because We All Need a Helping Hand Sometimes)

    Being a mom with a toddler and a baby is a difficult job, there’s no denying that. As hard as it is, it is also difficult to admit sometimes that we occasionally need a helping hand. We are all supermoms in our own right, so to ask for help can be frustrating and make us feel less capable than we really are.

    I have recently had situations where I have needed assistance and did not receive it from passersby or the folks around me. Two stories come to mind.

    First, I was out for a walk with my children – my baby girl was in the wrap and my toddler son was walking along side his stroller. I stopped to tie his shoe and didn’t put the brake on the stroller since no one was in it. As I bent down, the stroller began to roll off the sidewalk and into the street. Before I could catch it, the stroller toppled off of the curb and flipped over in the street between two parked cars, spilling coffee and whatever was in the bucket underneath everywhere. There’s me, trying to keep my curious boy from walking into the street to see what happened, keep my baby girl’s head from flopping around too much as I try to right the stroller, and keep whatever coffee was left in the travel mug from spilling all over me. Two women walked by this ridiculous scene. Instead of asking “Are you ok? Can we help you?” or anything like that, I heard one of them “Tsk” and say to her friend, “Good thing there was no kid in there!” Thanks, lady. They did nothing to help. They just walked on by. I managed, which I always do, but some assistance (or even just them checking in with me) would have been appreciated.

    Second, while traveling alone with the kids in Washington DC while my husband attended a conference, my stroller got closed in the doors of the Metro. I was, once again, wearing a sleeping baby and holding onto a toddler who was, once again, walking along side his stroller, and I was stuck. I yelled for someone on the train or the platform to help me and no one did. I yelled again. Still no help. I yelled louder “Could someone PLEASE help me!?!” which made my son started to get a little scared. Finally, a little old lady got out of her seat and tried to pry the doors open while other very capable men and women looked on. One other person also eventually got the hint and got up to assist, but only after he realized that the frail gray-haired woman couldn’t pull the doors apart by herself.

    There are a number of other occasions where people have seen me struggling a bit and have not offered their assistance. I’ve had doors hit me when people can’t bother to hold them open, I’ve had people watch me scramble after a grocery shopping bag ripped open spilling canned goods all over the parking lot of the supermarket, and I’ve waited in intersections to cross the street with both kids in extremely cold weather or heavy rain or snow as cars sped by splashing us instead of allowing us to cross safely. What has happened to simple human decency?

    I don’t like needing help and I especially don’t like asking for it… I’m stubborn like that. But these experiences have made me curious about people and what some folks are willing to do for a mom they’ve never met. I am certainly no martyr nor will I ever be a damsel in distress. However, I have decided to start my own little social experiment in a series I’m calling “The Kindness of Strangers.”  My intention is to ask for help when I could use a helping hand or take people up on their offers to assist me. There won’t be any TV cameras nor will anybody be “served.” It will just be about people helping people. I’m curious as to what will happen and I’m hoping to have some of my faith in people restored. To be continued…