Todd Stocker's Blog

Stranded In The Garage – Selfish or Selfless

Selfishness isn’t often obviously identified in adults. Kids, yes, but adults, not as much. However, it does rear it’s ugly head. My family and I experienced it first hand a few weeks ago. Here’s the story.

After returning from a wedding in Arizona, we dragged ourselves off the plane, collected our bags and trudged to the long-term parking lot on the far side of the airport. Being late at night, we were anxious to get home and hit the hay. As we approached our van, I hit the clicker to open the door. Nothing. That was my first clue. Using the key, we open the back and slugged in our bags. Then Kellie tried to start our vehicle. It was dead. Not even a small churning of the engine. It was completely gone.

No worries, I thought. A few rows away was a man who’d been on the flight with us and his brand new F-150 truck was humming as he was loading his bags into the back cab. I walked over, introduced myself as a fellow traveler, explained our situation and asked for a jump. He looked down at the ground adjusted his hat and said, “Well I don’t know.” I mentioned my tired family (he was alone) and how there was an open space in front of us so aligning our front ends would be easy. “Well, it’s a new vehicle,” he replied. I told him that I have brand new jumper cables so all I’d need is to hook up his battery to mine – no big deal. His reply exposed his valuing himself rather than helping a stranded family. He said, “I just got this vehicle and … and … I don’t know how reliable the charging system is … so I don’t know.” Charging system! Did he think I was that dumb! Battery to battery isn’t a charging system.

Disgusted I yelled in his face, “You are the most selfish human being I know!” Actually I didn’t say that since he was busting with muscles that I didn’t know existed. I simply said, “Never mind” and walked away.

Now what? Stranded in the garage. (Sounds like a late sixties love song). Then, another vehicle turned down an adjacent aisle. I flagged the tired looking family down and explained our plight. The driver – younger than I – looked over at his wife and then back at his weary kids, assessing my request. “Sure” he said and dove over to give us a jump.

As we were getting the job done, I found out that they had started their morning in Alaska, tapering off a 2 week fishing vacation. They had traveled all day, literally – a long drive to a Podunk Alaskan airstrip, plane connection after plane connection. All that was lacking was the “train” part. His family and he was far more exhausted than we and yet he stopped and helped, simply because another human being needed it and because it was a selfless thing to do.