I’ve mentioned before that my husband affectionately calls me Gordon Leadfoot when I drive. It’s his humorous (to him) way of combining one of his favorite musicians with my tendency to always be in a hurry.
Several speeding tickets to my name, I’ve gotten much better at obeying the law, but there are still times when I feel like my absolute need to be somewhere creates a valid reason to speed. I know. I’m sorry to all the law enforcement officers reading this. I’m wrong. I’m working on creating better habits.
Anyway, I had to giggle when I got this story from Sarah Tachon in Evansville, Wisconsin. A fellow mom and kindness advocate, she found herself rushing for a good reason. She didn’t get caught, but she was mortified by who did.
“A group of us enjoy cooking and decided to prepare a meal before the winter break to bring to the kindergarten through second grade teachers’ lounge for lunch. We were excited for the challenge of feeding 50 to 60 hard-working teachers. They like Asian food, so I asked my ‘authentic’ Chinese friend, Maggie, to lead the group.
There were about six of us gathered for grilling and chopping at my house. Many of these people are playgroup friends and are home during the day, but our little group also included two grandmas who volunteered to help. We assembled an awesome meal of stir fried noodles, potstickers and an Asian slaw salad and loaded it into the car.
Maggie and I hopped into one car and ‘the grandmas’ followed in another to help set up at the school. We had eight minutes to get there before the second grade teachers would be arriving for lunch.
Racing down the highway, my heart sank as I went right past a police officer waiting to catch speeders. ‘This could ruin everything,’ I thought to myself ‘and all because of a bad choice to speed.’
Luckily, the officer didn’t pull out to follow me, but when I looked back, I could see his flashers go on behind the grandmas’ car. Oh no! This is even worse! They were just trying to help and now I’ve gotten them pulled over because I was speeding and they were following.
I whipped my car around, pulled up behind them and begged the officer to let them go. I told him we were bringing food to the school and had only six minutes left to get there. We offered him some noodles from the car, but he politely declined.
The officer let the grandmas go with a verbal warning and a smile. We were trying to show kindness to the teachers, but ended up having kindness given to us.”
I bet the next time Sarah’s group assembles to cook up some kindness, they’ll be delivering it to the local police station.
Please continue to share your stories of kindness with me at info@nicolejphillips.com. Or send a letter to Kindness is Contagious c/o Nicole J. Phillips, The Forum, 101 5th St. N., Box 2020, Fargo, ND 58107.
Nicole J. Phillips is a former television anchor for Fox News in Fargo. She is a writer, speaker and mother of three kids. Nicole is married to Ohio University’s men’s head basketball coach Saul Phillips. You can visit Nicole at nicolejphillips.com/.