Paying It Forward: A Breakfast Surprise In Maltby, WA

With all the bad news swirling around these days, we have been sharing stories of good news, particularly random acts of kindness, and asking our readers to share their experiences of goodwill with us. Today we bring you a story of a random act of kindness from our mailbag. This story comes from Vanessa in Maltby, WA. It's not an exotic story but its definitely one of random kindness.

This past Saturday we just weren't in the mood to make ourselves breakfast so we went to the ever popular Maltby Cafe, in Maltby, WA. You couldn't tell we were in a recession that morning. We put our name on the list for a table and were told it would be an hour (which is the way it's been on the weekend for years). To kill time, we headed up the road to a local nursery, which was also incredibly busy with customers. We got back to the Cafe after being away for 40 min. Apparently they had already called our name but were able to seat us right away.

We ordered, food came, we really enjoyed it, then when it was time for the check, our waitress said, "Well...your tab has been paid for." "What?" my husband and I asked. "Yea, funny thing. We had a really large party here this morning and they decided to pay for another party's tab. Those people then paid for someone else's tab and those people have paid for yours!" It didn't even take a nanosecond for me to say, "Well, let's keep it going!" Our waitress let us know we had covered the tab for the couple who sat nearest to us. We only hoped they would some how enjoy it and then pass it on.

BE THE CHANGE

- Vanessa

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/08/paying-it-forward-a-break_n_198029.html