52x52:: Tissues and Shoulders to Cry On

52 random acts of kindness that each take under 52 seconds. One action each week, over a year takes less than an hour of your life.

I am one of those people who carries a first aid kit. Well my version of one which has everything from bandages to duct tape, depending on the situation. However I do run out of tissue. Luckily I have a friend who never seems to. She will be that person to hand the bride's mother a tissue or to rescue me in the cinema when I succumb to another one of those weepy movies and have run out of sleeves. 

The one and only time she did not have a tissue was when we were on the Governors Island ferry in New York and I opened a bottle of Dr Pepper, exploding the contents onto the deck and the passengers around me. But someone else came to the rescue and handed me some paper tissue, which I then used to wipe the jacket of the man who'd had no idea he'd been covered until I told him. The story continues with discussions of New York hospitality, tourist mishaps and the passengers surprise that I took what looked like a towel (but was the blanket from the airplane we arrived on) and cleaned the deck. I was 'definitely not a New Yorker' then it seemed. I said I was a Youth worker so more than anything was worried someone would slip and crack their skull open on the deck but also reminded them that they were New Yorkers who had given me the paper tissue, laugherd off a soiled jacket and made me feel less of a fool than I could have felt. 

So this weeks random act of kindness is to give a tissue or shoulder to cry on or make someone feel less of an idiot for whatever mishap that has come their way.