The Kindness Bandit: Poor Librarians Time to Give them a Break

Today's Kindness Bandit is giving thanks to poor librarians. I don't know about the library where you live, but here librarians have to put up with the following:

• Garbage stashed in shelves.
• Cranky book seekers, looking for a book that has not yet been released.
• Booger infested children's DVDs.
• People stampeding for computer time.
• Individuals who seem to feel that the library is actually their home.
• People talking loudly on cell phones. It's the library shhhhhhhh.
• Limited respect for the Dewey decimal system

So, I decided to brighten the day of one library worker. I dropped a card into the library return box. I chose the most ridiculous card you could imagine.

Here is what I wrote:

I hope you are having a good day at work. If you are having a bad day then let me lift your spirits with a bad joke.
Q: Why did the cowboy get a dachshund?
A: Because someone told him to get along little doggie.
Hopefully your day is better than that joke.
Love-TKB

OK, so some of you are probably already familiar with that joke, but it's just too bad and I must share it with the world. Anyway, some random library employee will, at very least, be momentarily stunned by the bizarre joke. Hopefully it actually makes their day a bit better. We'll never know.

Spotted: Good Deeds by Others

With all of the Kindness Bandit stuff, I have been on the look out for ideas and inspirations. This week I have seen it in others. Here are two examples:

Exhibit A: On Friday, Eric and I were in Cherry Creek headed to the library. We pulled into the parking lot and headed over to pay for parking. A woman hopped out of her car and handed us her parking pass which still had some time left on it! She could have just let us walk by, but instead she took the time to do something little and sweet for us. Made my day.

Exhibit B: We were out for a cup of coffee when we saw a guy, who appeared to be drunk and down on his luck, come into the coffee shop. He sort of stumbled up to the counter and asked if there was any work he could do to pay for a cup of coffee. He said that he had been up all night because he couldn't find a place to sleep. The guy at the counter offered to buy him a cup of coffee. I must admit that at first I thought he was just doing it so the drunk man would not make a scene, but then the homeless man went over to the food counter and asked if there was a broken tortilla or something that he could eat. The coffee shop guy made him an entire sandwich. I saw the worker pay for it himself. Finally the homeless man got up to leave and the coffee shop guy offered him a cup of coffee to go. The man, with whatever problems was very grateful.
*Yes, I know I was really eavesdropping here, but it was difficult not to overhear it.

Anyway, I thought you would like to know. Sometimes it is such a wonderful reminder to see real goodness in action.

Who is this Kindness Bandit?

So, lately I have been around many a random act-o-kindness and it has just been lovely. Today I was driving home I thought, "I want me some of that." So I have decided to transform myself into.........
Yep, you got it. Let me give you the low-down. The plan is that I am going to work to regularly complete random acts of kindness and report back to you, my lovely reader, with the hopes of inspiring 3 people: The person(s) who benefits from my random act, you and myself.

I thought I would start off with a few different ideas. Please keep checking back as I intend to share my random acts on a weekly basis.

First up I asked Eric to be my accomplice. Together we decided on a few different ideas. The picture below shows a sealed envelop that reads, "For You". We wrote up my favorite joke (to read it click here) and then a note encouraging the person to have a good day and pass it on. We posted the note by the mail boxes in our apartment complex


Next I printed out a funny Far Side (click here to see) and rolled it up with the dog poop bags for someone to get a laugh before they pick up dog poo.


We also wrote up a list of fun movie night ideas (including a fort night) and put them with our movie rentals (which were Becoming Jane and Rambo).


One from the library and one from Netflix! I should also mention that we carefully made each list to match the movie.


So, hopefully this inspires you. I had a lot of fun doing this and I look forward to much more. I warn you, it's addictive!