Killing them with Kindness

Tori is becoming as addicted to freecyle and craigslist as I am. Her only hold back is she really only has access to the San Marcos version of both and I can use Austin's. Bigger city, more and better stuff.

You are allowed to post on both for "wanted" items. I smiled when I came across a post by Tori a few days ago asking for any left over plastic eggs anyone had. She wants to put up an Easter egg hunt for her entire apartment complex. She's already looking at spending tons for candy and goodies to fill the eggs. She doesn't want to spend money ON eggs as well. And she wants literally hundreds of them.

I met Tori for lunch today and she was telling me about a guy who responded to her post. First off, you are only suppose to respond if you can fill that "want" -- not to complain or offer advice. This guy responded confused by Tori's statement that "she couldn't afford the eggs even at dollar store prices". He honestly didn't understand how $1 for 12 eggs was too much to pay. But, he assured her, if she would look at the circular from Hobby Lobby she would see their $1 eggs were on half price right now. So they would be 24 eggs for $1 which was only four cents each.

He went so far as to provide her a link to the page on Hobby Lobby's webpage where the ad was at. And he had much more to say. He told her how to search the Internet and check out the online ads for deals. How to comparison shop.

Tori said he didn't sound like he was trying to be mean. He just sounded like a guy who had never been broke a day in his life and had no clue that four cent eggs were expensive if you wanted hundreds of them.

I asked her how she responded and she wrote back and told him:

"Thank you so much for taking the time to write back such detailed information about how I can locate low cost products. I was amazed at the time you spent gathering your facts and supplying such detailed information and links. Not everyone would have had the time or gone to the effort to supply so much information for someone they didn't know. I really am just amazed at your effort to help me and point me in a direction I might have not considered. Really, thank you. You have no idea how much your email had been in my thoughts today as I considered my options for purchasing eggs. I would never have thought to check Hobby Lobby or comparison shop. Really, I just can't think you enough . . . "

Oh, she went on. For paragraphs and paragraphs, she went on. But at this point, I was laughing so hard I couldn't hardly hear her.

I was telling Steve about it tonight and he said, "Good for Tori!" But we both agreed the person receiving her response back probably didn't even get that it was an insult. People like that really are so obvious, he's probably sitting around feeling all happy about being able to help out a less fortunate.