I’m quite aware of the phrase…paying it forward…and…I do it several times a 
day…without consideration of compensation…it’s just the way Mama raised me…play nice…
Interestingly…I tend to pay forwards and backwards…remembering what it was like to be a young mother with a stroller and a toddler by the hand…I always try to hold doors and lift buggy wheels if needed…regardless of what I have in my hands…they are empty compared to hers…
I also paid backwards when raising my children…and…even today…when they needed things that were really a stretch for me…usually time and energy…I remembered all the sacrifices Mama made for us when we were growing up…all the ballgames and concerts she took us to…all the nights she stayed up sewing a new outfit…all the moves she helped us make…and…doing for my girls…was how I paid her back…
Courtesy in traffic…is probably some of both…and…something that I try to do…even though that driver who insists on speeding to the front of the merging lane before attempting to get over…when I’ve been sitting there for an eternity…does grate on my nerves…even after I let him over…
So…it wasn’t much of a stretch for me a few months back when a co-worker mentioned that her daughter needed some sort of a cabinet for her new kitchen…I had an old cabinet that just might fit the bill…it was a converted wooden kitchen cabinet…probably used to have the flour bin built in…but had been modernized…with drawers…and was painted kind of country…it had been perfect for me a few houses…and a couple of thousand square feet ago…but…now…downsized…it was sitting in Mama’s workshop…just taking up space…albeit housing a couple of fruit jars…
Anyway…long story short…I offered…she accepted…she offered to pay for it…glad to find it a good home…I declined…just please…come and get it…they did…and everyone was happy…and honestly…I forgot about it…
Fast forward…New Year’s Eve…I woke up to no heat…thinking it was the thermostat…since it had gone blank on me…I called this same co-worker…whose husband is in the HVAC business…with visions of holiday charges dancing through my mind…I asked if he could come and check it…he did…it was the thermostat…he had one with him…he replaced it…and…then…when I went for my checkbook…he said…no charge…not even for the thermostat…just one blue cabinet…
So…Bertha…says…she doesn’t even have to give me the moral to this story…although…she does want to point out that it contradicts the saying…no good deed goes unpunished…
And…I must admit…as I sit here toasty warm…she’s on to something…
Jane
