Several times throughout the course of a day we have more than one opportunity to pay someone a kindness.

These situations can be so mundane that we often overlook them.

A car on the side of the road with the hood up could be passed with the thought that “help is assuredly on the way.”

Just as easily, people in a waiting room could ignore comments from another about how the vending machine stole their money, even after the same machine provides a drink to another customer.

But that’s not what occurred Tuesday afternoon in the waiting room of the Pearl River County Sheriff’s Department in Millard. It started when an elderly woman waiting at the jail remarked to staff that the vending machine stole her dollar.

Staff at the jail did their best to be helpful, saying that the woman could leave her name and when the company that maintains the machines returns, her money could be refunded.

To which the woman replied, “It would cost me more to drive down here to get the dollar.”

As she sat quietly waiting to meet with the official, a young man stepped into the waiting room, walked to the vending machine and inserted two dollars to buy a drink.

When the drink was dispensed as planned, the woman’s ears perked up. As he retrieved his drink from the machine, the woman commented about how the machine had just taken her dollar.

The young man replied that it also did not provide him with the .75 cents change owed, and subsequently sat down.

The opportunity to help the woman must have struck the young man, because he walked back to the machine and put in another dollar before turning to the woman to ask what she would like to drink.

Sprite in hand, she graciously thanked the young man for his kind deed. 

Simple acts of kindness may be hard to detect, but if we keep our eyes and ears open, we could brighten someone’s day.