When Daniel saw his older neighbor arguing with her son about her plants, he decided to help her. He offered to water her garden while she moved. Later, he discovered a note hidden in the soil that changed everything in an unexpected way.
“I can’t believe you would ask that of me! I can’t come here every day to water your plants! If you gave me the house, I would do it!” Daniel heard someone shouting as he stopped his bike in front of a pretty little house with a lovely garden. He knew Mrs. Carrino lived there, but he had never spoken to her and didn’t know who was yelling.
Suddenly, he saw a man leave the house, still shouting, with the older woman following behind. “Arnold, I asked you to help me, but all you care about is getting this house! Are you crazy? Do you want me to die so you can have my house?” she exclaimed.
Daniel’s eyebrows raised in surprise, and he thought about leaving, but he couldn’t move.
Then, he heard a loud crash of metal. “What the—” he said to himself.
“You’re being dramatic, Mom! This house will be mine anyway. I can’t believe you’re acting like this when I’m trying to help you move!” Arnold shouted.
“Leave right now if you’re going to act like that!” Mrs. Carrino replied. Arnold angrily stomped to his car and drove off. They were so caught up in their argument that they didn’t even notice Daniel standing there with his bike.
Finally, Mrs. Carrino looked over and noticed him. “Oh, dear. What are you doing here? Do I know you?” she asked.
“I live two houses down the street. I’m Daniel, Caroline’s son,” he said, pointing back to his house. “I’m sorry, but I was biking around and heard the yelling. Are you alright, Mrs. Carrino?”
“Oh, I remember you now! It’s nice that you know my name. Don’t worry about it. It was just my son being difficult,” she explained.
“Why is he acting like that?”
“Well… I’m moving to a nursing home, and I asked him to help me. But he only came here to ask if I could give him the house. He wants to move in, but I know he’ll just sell it. He doesn’t value it like I do. I worked hard for this place, and as long as I’m alive, I won’t sell it,” Mrs. Carrino said. “Then he threw a fit when I asked him to water my plants. I guess you saw the rest of the fight.”
“I can do that,” Daniel said, shrugging his shoulders.
“Do what?”
“Water your plants.”
“I can’t pay you, dear,” Mrs. Carrino replied, looking sorry.
“I know. But I live so close. It’s not a problem,” Daniel insisted, making her smile brightly.
A few days later, Mrs. Carrino moved to a nursing home nearby, and Daniel kept his promise. He visited her home almost every day to water her plants and was happy to help. Before long, he started to love gardening and would visit Mrs. Carrino to ask about adding some new plants.
Dropping the shovel, Daniel used his hands to dig up a mason jar with a metal lid and found a note inside.
“Dear Daniel! Thank you for your help. This house is now yours! Go inside and find all the paperwork. You and your family can move in whenever you want!”
Daniel couldn’t believe his eyes. He rushed inside, using the key Mrs. Carrino had left him. On the kitchen counter, he saw the title to the house. Although he didn’t understand most of it, he saw his name at the bottom.
Still in shock, he called Mrs. Carrino, who confirmed everything. “You’ll need to sign it to complete the transfer. But I wanted you to find the note first!” she said.
His mother couldn’t believe it either. They could move into the house and stop paying rent. There was no mortgage, which would help their family a lot. They were so grateful for Mrs. Carrino’s gift that his mother and siblings started visiting her often, thinking of her as a grandmother.
But during their move, Daniel discovered something even more surprising. In Mrs. Carrino’s old room, he found another note. It was similar to the first one but said “Arnold.”
It turned out that Mrs. Carrino had originally planned to give her son the house if he helped her with her plants. However, after his rude behavior, she changed her mind and decided to give the house to Daniel instead.
This unexpected gift came just for being kind and helpful. It was a lesson Daniel would never forget.
Sо I аm аt Wаlmаrt sсаnning аnd bаgging my аlmоst $300
So I am at Walmart scanning and bagging my almost $300 worth of groceries while the employee that wants $15 an hour “monitors” and then this happened.
Her – why are you double bagging all of your groceries?
Me – excuse me?
Her – you are wasting our bags!
Me – if you don’t likе the way I’m bagging the groceries, feel free to come on over here and bag them yourself.
Her – that’s not my job!
Me – okay, then I will bag my groceries how I please if that’s all right with you.
Her – why are you using two bags?!
Me – because the bags are weak and I don’t want the handles to break or the bottoms to rip out.
Her – well that’s because you are putting too much stuff in the bag. If you took half of that stuff out and put it in a different bag then you wouldn’t need to double bag.
*10 seconds of me just staring at her.
Me – so you want me to split these items in half and put half of them in a different bag so that I don’t have to double bag.
Her – exactly.
Me – so I would still be using two bags to hold the same number of items.
Her – no because you wouldn’t be double bagging.
*me pressing two fingers to my left eye in an attempt to make it stop twitching.
Me – okay so here I have a jug of milk and a bottle of juice double bagged. If I take the milk out and remove the double bagging and just put the milk in the single bag and the juice in that single bag I’m still using two bags for these two items.
Her- no because you are not double bagging them so it’s not the same number of bags.
*me looking around at about 10 other customers who at this point are enjoying the show.
Me- is this likе that Common Core math stuff I keep hearing about?
Her- never mind you just don’t get it.
And with that, she went back to her little Podium so she could continue texting or playing games on her phone or whatever it was she was doing before she decided to come over and critique my bagging skiIIs.
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