About 9 months ago My family and I moved from one of the largest cities in New Zealand, Auckland, to one of the smaller towns, Cambridge. Its been interesting to say the least getting used to being more relaxed, only takes 2 minutes to get to anywhere, takeaways now consist of about 5 options rather than 1000 (this is a good thing, my diet is MUCH better!). Everyone is totally more friendly and helpful. If somebody tripped and fell on the sidewalk, everyone would be there in and instant helping them up.
One of the coolest and fun things I like, is if you are walking through town, and even remotely look like you are going to cross a zebra crossing, cars will stop and wait for you to get to the crossing, and cross! It makes you tend to hurry up since they are so darned nice!
When i was in hospital and my husband was at home with the kids, he had people turning up with dinner and other things to help out, it was really awesome.
This town is friendly, and i guess I’m really getting into the ‘being a helpful friendly person’ thing that you just cant do in Auckland without people taking advantage of you. I love the feeling when you do a good deed.
I was finally back in Cambridge, and going into work to surprise my husband. I visited Maya (i think thats how you spell it!) at the shop downstairs and got her to send up some munchies upstairs to the office, and was just about to go up the lift (hey i was fresh outta hospital!). Anyway This old lady in the shop grabs my arm and asks if we could possibly help her carry her bags so she doesnt have to make two trips.
Im all for helping out, and I figured Maya would be another 10 minutes preparing the food. I wasnt allowed to lift heavy items so i got my 2 lovely daughters to do it for me. We carried them maybe 100 mtrs down the road.
So the next week i she asked me again, and because again, still not allowed to lift heavy things I had to say no, I felt kinda bad, but didn’t have much choice. So I was thinking about it , I had a talk to Maya, and this lady apparently does this every single day. Goes and sits at the cafe and leasurely eats morning tea and lunch then tries to get people to carry her shopping for her.
So I went down to the Second hand shop, and asked if they had a Shopping Trolly Bag. One of those ones with the wheels that you drag behind you. The lady said “no, but i have one at home i can bring in you can buy for $5!”. So today i went in and picked it up.
As I got to the Cafe, i noticed the old lady sitting there having her cuppa, bonus! I didnt have to wait! So i gave it to her …… She looks as me as if i did something nasty. Eeeek! “I dont accept gifts from strangers!” she says. Eventually I got her to remember me from helping her out other times and when I’d seen her a couple of other times.
Then she looked like she was going to cry that somebody had been so thoughtful. And then she got talking ……..and talking ….
Started with a “Oh are you from Cambridge? oh the new area, houses are very close together there …… oh you rent … you need to buy one …. im selling my house …..” So by the time i left, my lunch was cold, and she had tried to pay me off with food (from the cafe of course), buy my daughters things (we refused), sell me her house, and had a moan about how the toilets in the building were not free for public use etc.
Though you might be thinking im a nice kind person, I’m not. I just figured that the $5 i paid for the silly trolley bag may just stop her having to ask people for help and give some independance (apparently people were getting annoyed with her asking every single day also lol)
+5 Karma Points