Pizza: It Can Save Lives

I had a doctor’s appointment because I have depression. My life is currently pretty bad, as I am unemployed, without a car, and am basically mooching off my parents — who have split, mind you — for money. It’s a rainy, very gray day. I’m staying at my aunt and uncle’s house, and I haven’t eaten anything since breakfast. I’m hungry but won’t eat anything just because I don’t feel like it and I think of it as imposing on my aunt and uncle.

So, I have enough money to get the bus to go to the doctor, and my stomach is feeling incredibly empty. I’m absolutely regretting having not gotten something to eat because of my own stupidity and start thinking that maybe things would be better if I was dead. In other words, I am having a major depressive episode. I signal to get off the bus, only the stop I get off at is a short walk from the one in front of the doctor’s office, the one I had wanted to get off at. I’m now walking in the rain, mentally berating myself for having screwed up, when a guy comes by on his bike.

He’s got a pizza box and asks if I’m hungry. My first instinct is to say no, but then I stop and say yes. I take one slice of pizza and eat away, turning down his offer for more out of mere politeness. He even offers me the whole box but I still say no. One slice is enough. The guy informs me that he has done his good deed for the day and says, “God bless,” before riding off on his bike.

That guy completely changed me. That one man who offered me pizza when I was starving and feeling like my life wasn’t worth living gave me something precious: hope. He cared enough to make sure someone like me got something to eat because it was the right thing to do. Even now, thinking about it, I feel like crying that anyone could care that much as to help a random stranger at a bus stop. I’ve never seen this guy again, but I will always remember Pizza Bike Guy, who might have saved my life with one selfless act.