When we got our job and started making some money we started going to a certain coffee shop all the time to charge battery packs so that we could have a way to charge our phones and other devices while we're homeless. So we just became a regular who bought coffee twice a week, almost every week.
That's all we did. We bought coffee and we were polite about it. We were patient when they were in the middle of a rush. We said please and thank you whenever we asked for something. We were understanding when they made a mistake on our order and asked them to kindly fix it. Once, we had handed one dollar too many to the barista, and when they tried to hand it back, we shrugged and dropped it in the tip jar. That's it.
They got to know us by the name we were using at the time. They're always so accommodating whenever we ask for something. They tell us it's nice to see us. Last week, they accidentally made an extra lunch item that none of them wanted, so they offered it to us before the other customer that was in the shop. When we came in after we lost our job, the barista asked us how we were like usual. actually asked what was wrong when we were honest and said we weren't having a good day. They bought our coffee that day. Next time we came in, we had two interviews lined up. We paid for our coffee and the barista offered us congratulations and encouragement. Two weeks later, we came in again, and we were struggling not to be teary because we got rejected from those interviews. The barista bought our coffee again and offered us reassurance that something would work out.
We just had another interview yesterday. Today, we sat down at the coffee shop and plugged our battery packs in while we sat there on our phone for a bit to nervously check our notifications before we went to the counter. A random customer noticed us and offered to buy us a coffee.
None of these people know who we are. None of them know us as a person. They know our face and that we're well mannered to them, but they don't know anything about us or our values otherwise. We could be someone with opinions and beliefs that go against their morals. We could even be someone they wouldn't normally want to be nice to. Yet, they don't seem to consider any of that.
People are nice sometimes.
And that is a big development for me.
I hate people. I am the kind of man who would gladly see the majority of the world burn. I have experienced so much pain at the hands of human beings. In fact, I feel as though we encounter more bad than good.
Lately, however, when I think about burning down everyone and everything, I stop for a moment. I stop, and I think: Well, maybe I don't want that barista to burn. Maybe the person at the gas station, who offered to help us put a new bulb in our tail light simply because they see us all the time and noticed, doesn't quite deserve that either.
Do I now think people might be wonderful after all? Am I going to start trusting people over that? Absolutely not. Buying me coffee doesn't make them trustworthy. It certainly doesn't automatically make them a good person.
Though maybe, just perhaps, it also doesn't mean they should burn either.
