The Red, Mystic Truck of Glory

This week, I was given a challenge in my M COM class:

"Buy a stranger a coke."

Those were Brother Clarke's words, literally.  Haha.

What he really meant was for us to go out of our way to do something nice for a stranger.

Buy them a coke, dinner, a present, anything.

Sounds like a reasonable task, right?

 I was excited for the opportunity, but nervous about how I was going to do it.

My wish was to come up with something creative, but also something meaningful.

I knew I would be in St. George for the holiday weekend, so I decided to make this challenge a family event.  We loaded up Big Red (the name of our red Ford F150 truck) and set out on a joy ride through good ol' STG to find some inspiration--which led us down St. George Blvd, the king street of fast food.  The plan was simple: enter a  fast food drive-thru and pay for the car behind me.  I know, I know, not the most creative idea ever.  However, my siblings, my mom and I were all excited about the plot!  

We've shared experiences together when strangers have done something nice for us.  I remember a time when someone we didn't know paid for our table at a restaurant.  Last year, a random lady approached our family while we were waiting in the Disney World ticket-line and offered us her extra ticket.  Talk about a rather expensive present!

Wendy's turned out to be the place where we would choose our victim.  I guess "where our victim would choose us" is more accurate, since I couldn't pick out who would drive up behind me.  After about two minutes, a small red car entered the drive-thru.

Time to spread some kindness!  

My siblings and I brainstormed a message we wanted the Wendy's employee to pass on to the owner of the car.  "Superman strikes again!" was an idea thought of by one of my brothers.  My other brother made up: "Love, The Red, Mystic Truck of Glory" (hence the amazing title of this blog).  I sure have creative brothers, don't I?

The reaction of the employee after I told him my plan was pretty surprising; he looked at me like I was crazy.  Has he never had a customer perform this act of kindness before?  Nevertheless, I didn't let his response ruin the moment.  I was so eager to leave the scene that I almost forgot to stop at the second window to get our own food!

Oops... silly me.

My family and I had such a fun and memorable time, so we decided to do it again!  Taco Bell was the place, and the employee was much more receptive and nice about my request.  Once I told her I wanted to pay for the car behind me (which also happened to be a red color) she replied, "Oh, you want to be nice like that?  I love it when people do this!"  

We didn't see the reactions of the two people that we paid for; however, we had been touched in this way before, so we knew what it could feel like.

Seriously, I should perform this act of service more often.

The event was a great family outing! 

We had an unforgettable experience together helping a stranger.

See, you can have fun performing service for others.  We sure did!