It truly is a wonderful thing when you happen upon a situation that restores your faith in humanity – that is to say, if you are one of those people who sometimes stumble in your faith in humanity, like I do. Let me paint you a word picture…

My car – a 2001 Honda Civic EX – has been producing a horrible rattling, metal-on-metal sound whenever I would make a sharp right turn. It almost sounded like a large piece of metal was dragging on the ground, yet whenever I would look underneath I would see nothing. It’s been happening for almost 3 months now. I’ve been procrastinating getting it looked at because we really don’t have the money to drop into our car right now, nor do we have the time to juggle one car. We went away this weekend with our other car and when I came home and took out my car the sound had gotten SO MUCH WORSE. I took the car into the shop the next day.

I waited all morning at work with petrified anticipation of the $300 bill that was sure to come my way. Finally, at 11:00 my office phone rang.

Yeah, Hi Kenny, this is Michael at STS…

Hey Michael. So what’s the damage?

Oh yeah, the backing plate on your brakes was loose, so we tightened it up. It’ll be fourteen.

Fourteen?

Yeah, just fourteen bucks.

OH MY GOD. I haven’t had a car maintenance bill like that in … FOREVER. That’s cheaper than my car washes and oil changes. Somehow, something like that put a big smile on my face for the rest of the day. Justice and Fairness still exist!

Have you had an experience lately that restored your faith in humanity?