Two years ago, St. Augustine, Florida. I’m at a gas station, after having spent some time helping a distraught woman with directions to where she needed to go. She can’t figure out her car’s navigation system. No smart phone. The last person she asked had just confused her more. We figure out her destination. Turns out she had over-shot her exit by thirty minutes. She writes down the steps on paper as we go through it on Google maps, me calming her, talking her off the ledge as we go. She’s terribly relieved.
Her: “Thank you! Thank you so much! You’re so kind. So nice….” She examines my face. “You must be a Christian.”
Me, reflexively: “Oh God, no.”
She’s confounded, disappointed.
Me, hopeful: “I can still be nice, can’t I?”
*****
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As It Should Be 