I locked myself out of my apartment yesterday. It was a bad day. I had a couple of bad days this week. So bad that I posted about them and then deleted it because I don’t like whining on social media. It looks churlish in the grand scheme of things.
Anyway, back to my bad day and how I forgot my keys and locked myself out of my apartment…
That meant, yes, I had to turn to the dreaded “locksmith” for help. If you aren’t aware, locksmiths in NYC are notorious for being awful, hustling kinds of folks who charge people crazy amounts for simple lock picks, lock replacements, etc. So needless to say, I was wary.
The good news is my terrible day started to turn last night. I did my first volunteer shift with a group that reads books and does crafts with kids. The whole experience was more than the best part of my day. It calmed me down, gave me hope, inspired me to see goodness. I told a little boy fussing about coloring trees the right color a little pep talk about art and he lit up. It was amazing. Anyway, it got me out of the black hole of my mood – this is important for what happened next.
My locksmith was on time and super nice. As we were walking up to my apartment, I mentioned how I was worried about the timing because I had been volunteering in East Harlem for the first time, didn’t know how long it would take me to get home, yada yada…and he lit up. He was like, “That’s so great! You’re such a good person! I volunteer, too, but with animals.”
He unlocked the door quickly and when I asked about how payment would work he literally said, “You know, could you do me a favor? Would you donate to my animal shelter? It would really mean a lot. You’re a good person. You get it. I’m trying to get to a $300 monthly goal. Let’s take ten dollars off the fee. Can I show you the website? The puppies are real cute!”
THAT’S RIGHT. THE LOCKSMITH ASKED ME TO DONATE HIS WORK FEE TO A DOG SHELTER.
His whole deal was like, “Wow we just put good out into the world.” And it was a great thing, guys. It was a great thing. So, like just remember not everyone in the world is garbage and decent people still exist. (Sorry if you’ve already heard this story on FB and twitter – I just can’t get over it.)
Anyway, I doubt that’s his deal with all clients – wouldn’t be able to stay in business – but this dude’s the locksmith you can trust, NYC.
This entry was posted by jbc on Saturday, December 10th, 2016 at 11:12 pm and is filed under Tumblr.
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