There are two commercials about kindness airing on television these days.

The commercial that has been around for a while shows a boy on a city bus with a chocolate bar in his hand. In the seat behind him is a teenage girl who has clearly been crying: her eyeliner and mascara are running down her cheeks.

The boy looks at the chocolate bar and back at her. Then, he opens the wrapper and gestures to her with it, clearly indicating she should break off a piece. “There is goodness in everyone” an announcer says as the girl smiles just a little.

In the second, a car drives over an old bridge under which a troll lives. The boy comes back and takes a peek at the troll’s dark and dingy home.

Later, he returns, dragging a huge sack behind him. The troll greets him eye to eye with a threatening look. Then, the sack is unpacked.

Likely, he makes several trips because we eventually see a smiling troll with chairs and a rug and nice decorations, all from Ikea.

The smiling troll now has a homey home.

I think that it is the same boy actor in both commercials. He does have a rather angelic round face, and the stories, one realistic and one whimsical, show how much a bit of kindness can make a difference in life.

I came across a rather different story in a Facebook post. The original story had been shared by someone who agreed that the woman in the story had the right attitude.

The woman who told the story first was in her seventies. She was waiting in a long lineup at a McDonalds drive through. When she did not immediately move forward when the car ahead of her did, the person in the car behind her honked. With the next opportunity to inch forward came, she was again slow to move.

This time the young woman leaned out of the car window shouting at her that she was holding up the line and being an idiot.

When the older woman got to the first window, she paid for her meal and told the teller that she wanted to pay for the meal of the woman in the car behind. She got receipts for both.

At the next window, she showed the person both receipts and took both meals. Her conclusion was something like, “Don’t get under the skin of an old woman. She’s had lots of years to figure out how to get revenge.”

The person who shared the post thought it was a great story about how to teach that younger woman a lesson. When I read it, I expected it to be a story about paying it forward. Then comes the moment when the older woman takes both meals.

Imaging what the younger woman felt when she got to the second window. At the first, she likely felt a little guilty, a little humbled. She may have had a moment of regret. That would intensify her reaction at the second window. Her meal was gone.

How would she feel? She was clearly in a hurry and not in a good frame of mind. Would she leave hungry and more furious? Would she have to go to the back of the line, making her even more late? Or would the server in the window be able to figure out how to replace her food?

If we put ourselves in the younger woman’s shoes, the lesson she would take away would more likely be “old people are cranky” or “people can be so mean” rather than “be more patient and polite, especially with your elders.”

The announcer in a commercial made about this story might say “there is no goodness in anyone”.

Which isn’t true, but there are days when things go so off the rails that this can be the way we feel.

All the more reason to pay it forward when we can.

Cathy Hird lives on the traditional territory of the Saugeen Ojibway Nation.

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