What Would You Do?

On my drive to work this morning, I had an experience that made me think. Here's the set-up: I was coming up to a red light, going east, in a lane to go straight, with two left turn lanes next to me. There was a divider in the road separating the east-west traffic. After the light, all the cars in my lane were getting onto the freeway, so the left-turn traffic was kind of the last chance to get off the road before the freeway. On the other side of the road, but down the road a bit (where the left turn lane leads) is a Walmart. It was 8am and my car's thermometer said it was 16 degrees outside. Walking away from the Walmart parking lot was a man, probably in his late 40's, fairly well-dressed (jeans, jacket- looked like he could be anybody's next door neighbor). He was carrying several bulky grocery bags and having a hard time handling them all. As I got up to the light and first saw him, he had just dropped a few items and was trying to reposition everything in his hands. And he had no gloves. He was walking towards the freeway underpass, meaning he had at least a little ways to go to get home, since there aren't any houses or parking lots between there and the other side of the freeway. Now think about it- everybody on the road at that time of day on a weekday has someplace to be. When I saw him, I started going through the possibilities in my mind- could he get across 4 lanes of traffic to my car before the light switched? Could I switch enough lanes to get over to him in time? Would it be safe for me to pick up a complete stranger, even if he looks innocent enough? Do I have time to pick somebody up and give him a ride to wherever he's going on my way to work? In the few seconds that I had to process the situation, a man in one of the turn lanes made a u-turn and went and picked the stranger up, and helped him load everything into his car. It made my day to know that there are people out there who would take time out of a freezing and busy morning to help out a complete stranger who obviously needs it. I'd like to think I would have helped if I hadn't seen the other person help, but I also know I felt some relief when I saw somebody else doing it. What would you do?

Cars

I live in a car-centric world. I've known this since 1986. I remember we had a roll of aluminum foil that was in a cardboard box, and the box was advertising some kind of contest. The grand prize was a 1987 Ford Mustang Convertible. Back then, pictures on boxes were just drawings, but even with just a drawing, I remember thinking what a beautiful car that Mustang was, and I was so mad that as a 6-year old I couldn't enter the contest. I begged my parents to enter, but they wouldn't. That 1987 Ford Mustang Convertible was the first car I ever loved. About the same time, my dad pointed out a neighbor lady down the street who had two Mustangs from the 60s, and I remember thinking she must have been a pretty cool lady to have two such cars. The next car I fell in love with was a Jeep Cherokee (what a dream that 20 years later I got to work on its successor!). I don't remember where I first saw it. I probably just started seeing them around, but I thought they were great. After that, it was the red Miata convertible that my parents' friends bought (first model year). From there, my car-love list has grown exponentially. One day in college, my five roommates and I were squished in one of my roommates' cars going somewhere. As we stopped at a light, we were all buried in our own thoughts, and somebody asked what we were all thinking about. We each told what we had been thinking about in that moment, and got a good laugh at how perfectly each girl's thoughts fit her personality. I had been thinking that the Lexus sitting next to us looked exactly like a Camry (this was before I realized that Lexus was part of the Toyota brand), and I was wondering why somebody would pay luxury prices just to get a Lexus name plate on a Toyota.
My car thoughts haven't lessened any with time. A bad commute can be made better based on the cars I see. If I see a really great Sports car, or even just more Audi TTs than usual, I might forget that I got held up in traffic. I very often base my lane choice on the car that I'll be following or watching in my rearview mirror. And way too often, I have to remind myself to watch the road rather than the cars. So if anybody is really stuck on what to get me for Christmas...