Good Deeds...

'No good deed goes unpunished' or something close to that. 

A kei car had pretty much sunk its two front tires into a neighboring rice paddy. The two older women who were more or less responsible for single-vehicle accident looked a little embarrassed more than anything else. Whatever it was that they'd been talking about was no longer the focus of their attention.

Immediately, I'd pulled over to take a look. 

Things were starting to appear grim as I didn't have a cable or chain... I began

looking around for a board or something. There's never a good junk pile around when you need it. At least the rain had stopped.

Yet, as luck would have it, another car pulled over. A kind of middle-aged engineer type grabbed a cable from the back of his kei-ish car and began getting us hooked up. He knew the drill. We didn't really say anything as all of this was going on...only a few hand signals...motion to come forward...okay...stop....start backing up....slowly....got it....clear....see ya. 

Mr. Engineer was out and gone before anyone could even say thank you. We were trying to do the same thing when one of the ladies handed a small bag of oranges to our passenger and mentioned something about three....

"No thanks. We're good. Just try to stay on the road by maybe driving a little slower when it's wet. Okay...we'll take the fruit, since you insist. Thanks."

She mentioned something about 'the husband wouldn't be too happy' if he found out.

Why can't people just be thankful that nothing worse hadn't happened? Do older couples take everything that happens as an excuse to go after each other? No...don't go there.

We were what seemed like less than a minute down the road when one of the kids said, "We're rich! One...two...three!" 

"What!? She put 3,000 yen in there?"  I quickly looked for the next best place to turn to vehicle around and started to feel a little not happy about the event. They had their JAF sticker on and could have been pulled out for free. Yeah, they might have had to wait, but...

I wasn't exactly angry.... but had I known they were going to slip something in the bag while distracting me with food. 

Why can't people just let you do them a goddamn favor and let it go at that? This cultural indebtedness thing drives me up a wall sometimes. Haven't people heard of something called charity? A random act of kindness perhaps with absolutely no fucking strings attached? 

But, no. She had to one up me.  Straight to the heart, through my stomach. Maybe we men really aren't nearly as smart as we think we are. Clever, maybe, but smart...I've beginning to have my doubts. 

Remember to breathe. Just stay focused. 

We're not doing this for karma points people. I wouldn't even expect anyone else to necessarily do the same thing for me. You just do it because it's right and you happen to be there. Besides, this sets a bad example for the kids. If you're going to do good, you do it because you do it, not because you expect anything back in return. Sometimes you even catch hell for doing good. Yeah, the road that is paved with good intentions, paved brick by brick... got my name on a few of those, damn proud.

I was going to insist that they take the money back, damn it!

And If they refused, I was planning on telling them to pay it forward or something, damn it!

And if they couldn't even do that, I was going to push them back into the paddy....damn them..

But it didn't quite turn out that way. 

Note to self: Next time attempting to do anything that even resembles a good deed, be mentally prepared to go in knowing that somebody might try and pull a fast one. Even if they offer you a nice, juicy, pan-fried rib eye steak...cooked to perfection.

Photo Courtesy of Melting Wok: http://www.flickr.com/photos/meltingwok/747353380/

Yeah, next time, I'll show 'em.