Monday, August 31, 2009

Small Acts of Kindness

So, I'd like to just relate a small story that has impressed me lately. I'll start out in the past.

A little over two years ago, I was living in the freshman dorms, doing freshmen laundry in our freshmen basement. The laundromat was organized roughly so:



I put my dirty shorts, shirts, and under garments into an open machine, inserted the appropriate coinage, and was on my way. I planned accordingly and arrived back in the laundry room right before my wash was finished. I used one of those convenient MTC, wire "basket on wheels" to transfer my clothes from washer, to wire basket on wheels, to dryer. I loaded the dryer, added coinage, and once again, left the washroom. This time, however, I was not as deliberate in my planning and timing. Unregulated hours passed before I remember that my clothes were well past "tumble dry". Several hours later, I entered the laundry room, and found an untidy pile of my undies on the ground next to the "what is that?" goop in the corner of the room. I claim full responsibility for my actions (I was young, though) and took the young man's clothes, who had dumped my clothes on the floor, and spread them neatly into all 4 corners of the room. Retribution never felt so good.

Let's jump back to the present. I was leaving for 'saturday afternoon football with the guys', when a roommate said, "Hold on, I'm just going to throw a load in before we go". I realized that load might be sitting in the dryer for quite some time, an 'unregulated' amount of time, if you will. I recalled the events of freshman year, but couldn't risk being late for afternoon football. So, he started a drying cycle, and we left for many hours. Upon arrival home, I was taken aback to find my roommate grinning, with a pile of folded laundry in his hands.



The words, "They just made my day, and I don't even know who they are...I love BYU" left his mouth. There were so many opportunities for this anonymous person to have done the least amount of service possible. They could have left the dryer and chosen to do laundry at a later date. They could have simply dumped his laundry into the basket he'd left next to the machine. Heck, they could have chosen to dump them next to the nasty pile of "what is that" in the corner of the room. But they chose to do the most that they could. One by one, they folded his shirts, his pants, and his nice, white, underskivves and place them neatly in his basket. So insignificant, but yet so kind. I was impressed, and looked up kindness in the scriptures:

"...the desire of a man is his kindness." Prov. 19:22

A very small thing, but for me, it left an impression. And the most perfect part is that I'll never know who did it.

1 comment:

  1. Well... if you ever do find out who the Laundry fairy is, do you think you can send them my way?

    ReplyDelete