Fleetmack.com - An Angel in Disguise

Logo

"If you had a friend who was a tightrope walker, and you were walking down a sidewalk, and he fell, that would be completely unacceptible." --Mitch Hedberg

An Angel in Disguise
by Bryan Mack
12-16-2007

It is easy these days to gather a negative image of the world when all we tend to see is hatred. Selfish individuals shoot innocent people in malls, churches, and schools on all too regular of a basis. I participate in many online discussion forums in which peoples’ insensitivity makes me think there is no sympathy in the world. Recent political ads make voters think everyone in the world is evil besides the politician portrayed in this ad. People are so quick to hate and seek revenge on others without showing so much as an ounce of respect for others. Why should anybody believe there is any good in this world? Fortunately, I know the answer to this question.

Michelle. A woman named Michelle showed me last night that there is true goodness in the world for those of us who are able to walk around with our eyes open. People like Michelle, they make society better as a whole. If everybody in this world was like Michelle, I cannot imagine an ounce of hatred in this world.

I headed out to go snowboarding for the morning around 8am, a bit of a late start. I was to park my car at the Heritage Square parking lot where I was meeting a few guys whom I would car pool with. About 2 miles from the lot (and 15 miles from home) I realized I forgot my wallet at home. Realizing I would need to eat and buy gas if I wanted to get home that night, I called up Chris. Chris said he could loan me some money, so I borrowed $10 from him and he paid for my share of the gas to our drivers.

We returned to the parking lot in Golden around 7pm. I loaded up my car and said goodbye to the others, went to start my car and I realized I was out of gas. Chris was driving away, so I started flashing my headlights and honking my horn so he’d stop, but he didn’t see me. I immediately called Chris, but no answer; I remembered he’d turned his phone off as his battery was almost dead. Here I sat in a cold parking lot, alone in the darkness of a winter night, with no gas in my car, $7 in cash, no ID and no credit cards with about 30 seconds of life left on my cell phone. I walked up to the little trailer in the parking lot where the shuttle bus to the casinos leaves. There was one guy working and he had no car. He referred me to a gas station a mile up the road, so I started walking.

Morrison Road is a dark highway, and with the snow on the ground, there was no dry shoulder. There are no street lights, and the road is very windy where I was walking. Cars zoomed by at 50mph as I held up my thumb hoping for a ride to the gas station. I quickly realized I needed to get off the road as a car may not see me and come zooming around the corner at any time. I decided to go on the shoulder and forfeit my hitchhiking attempt, where each step sent my foot about 3” deep into the wet slush. About 20 minutes later, I arrived at the gas station.

The gas station attendant was outside smoking when I arrived, I asked her if she had a gas tank I could borrow so I could walk back to my car to fill it up. She didn’t have anything that she could help me with. As we stood there debating what I could do with my $7, no gas tank, and stagnate car located a mile away, God decided to send me a little angel as a present. This was no ordinary angel. A 35ish year old woman with stringy dirty-blonde hair and a raspy voice. She walked to the gas station from her trailer home to buy a pack of Marlboro Reds. She fished for change in her pockets so that she’d have enough to pay for the cigarettes. She overheard our dilemma and offered to me, “I have a gas tank at home, just up the street. You can use it if you’d like.” Thank you, thank you!

As I walked up the street with her past the trailers, she introduced herself as Michelle. Michelle had on a Harley Davidson shirt and told me she raced her motorcycle at the speed track on weekends. She smoked a cigarette as we walked, and we got to her house shortly. When we walked in to her house, she introduced me to her husband Randy and his friend for whom she didn’t give a name. Randy sat on the couch watching a fishing show, wearing a Harley Davidson hat with a long, rubber-band tied pony tail going down his back. His friend sat on the couch playing with a Game Boy; he had a goatee about 8” long down his chin and he drank a Coors Light tallboy.

Michelle sent Randy out to the shed to get a gas tank, which he did. Randy hadn’t said a word to me, but when he returned, he smiled and said, “Let’s go!” He offered me a ride to the gas station and to my car, with much appreciation, I accepted his offer without hesitation. We got in his car, I had on an Iowa State shirt and he asked me about Iowa; he was from Iowa City originally. We got back to the gas station and filled up the one gallon tank, before I got a chance to go in and pay for the gas, Randy returned and had paid. While apologizing and informing him that I forgot my wallet at home, I offered him my $7 as it was all I had. He refused to take it, flat-out refused. I offered and I offered, but he said, with a smile, “You’ll need that for more gas, I wouldn’t trust 1 gallon to get you back to Littleton!”

Randy drove me up the street to Heritage Square where we filled up the gallon tank and got my car started. I again thanked him and told him to thank his wife again, they were lifesavers. I pulled out of the parking lot and got back to the gas station, where Randy pulled in ahead of me to buy a tin of chewing tobacco. I went in to prepay for my gas and said goodbye and another thanks to Randy. After Randy walked out the door, I handed the gas station attendant my $7; she told me to keep it. Why? Well, Michelle had returned and gave her $10 and told her to put it towards my gas bill. You’ve got to be kidding me, this is without a doubt the most thoughtful gift I’ve received in my lifetime. I quickly said, “Please, give me $7 in PowerBall tickets! I need to run out quickly and give this to him as some kind of a thanks!” Well, for reasons that aren’t important, Randy took off before I could get the tickets (and I didn’t buy them). I hadn’t paid attention to which house was theirs when we walked home earlier and really wanted to get home. I decided on my drive home that I would buy a gift for them and deliver it as a Christmas gift in person next week, no matter how many doors I had to knock on in order to find out which house was theirs.

Goodness is all around us, as are good people. They are everywhere. In a city where the newspaper discusses Columbine high school on a weekly basis; in a city where two youth ministers were shot dead last week; in a city where pro NFL players are shot on New Year’s Eve; in a city where I get beat up with no remorse by strangers while trying to stop a fight. In this city, goodness is everywhere. The media paints a picture for us trying to show us that the city is a bad place. It is not. Nor is the world. I’d bet the farm you can find people like this in Baghdad, Detroit, or in the slums of South Central Los Angeles. It is important to not let the bad things that happen in the world overshadow the goodness that is everywhere. I’d challenge the Denver Post to run a front-cover article on the goodness of Michelle and Randy. Instead, the newspaper tomorrow will read about the secret diary of the Arvada Mission Shooter or something like this. He will be portrayed as a glorified hero in the minds of angry people worldwide, while Michelle and Randy will go unnoticed in the public eye. I must repeat what I said earlier:
If everybody in this world was like Michelle, I cannot imagine an ounce of hatred in this world.

Set your discrimination aside. Do something nice for somebody as often as you can. Prove to this world that there’s more to it than the trash that we read about on the front page of the newspaper. Turn yourself into Michelle or Randy. Be an angel in disguise.