(I am driving through the drive-thru of a popular fast food chain, when I reach the order speaker.)

Me: “Hello! Can I please get two frozen [Soda]s?”

Cashier: “You sure can!”

Me: “And can I please get two frozen lemon, lime, and bitters?”

Cashier: “I dunno…”

Me: “Pleeeaaasse?”

Cashier: “All right, but only because you said ‘please’!”

(At the payment window.)

Cashier: “That’s $4, thanks, and only because you said ‘please’!”

Me: “Well, my mother always told me manners would get me far in life. She wasn’t wrong!”

(I am a substitute teacher. I am working as a teacher’s assistant with a classroom of students who have high-functioning autism, grades three to five. We go outside for recess. I’m standing with one of the other teacher’s assistants by the fence when a boy approaches us.)

Teacher’s Assistant: “Oh, boy, here comes [Student]. He always tries to get us to let him climb the fence. When we tell him no, he’ll start cursing in another language.”

Student: “May I please go climb the fence? I want to climb the fence.”

Teacher’s Assistant: “No, [Student], you are not allowed to climb the fence.”

Student: *starts speaking in a foreign language, making angry gestures*

Me: *calmly replies in the same language*

(The student and TA both stare at me before the student flees. The TA is astonished.)

Teacher’s Assistant: “What? You can understand him?! What was he saying?!”

Me: “Oh, that was Farsi. I learned basic conversational words and commands when I was deployed. Also, I think he hears the language at home but doesn’t understand it, because he just keeps saying, ‘I want to drink water,’ over and over again.”

Teacher’s Assistant: “But what did you say to him?”

Me: “I asked if he wanted a cup.”

(The student came and left by a special daycare van, and the parents never came to the school, so we don’t know the full story. But I’m told by the Teacher’s Assistant that whenever he tries to pull that stunt, someone calmly walks him over to the water fountain. I’ve been back a few times, and when he sees me, the student runs away.)

(My family and I are regulars at a convenience store. We are waiting in line when we get cut off by a woman in her early thirties. My thirteen-year-old brother decides to take matters into his own hands.)

Brother: “Man, aren’t lines great? I love lines. There the best. My favorite part about lines: waiting in them. Some people, unfortunately, don’t like lines as much as I do. Those people are jerks, right, [Mom]?

Woman: *realizes the message*

Brother: “I’m not in a rush; I can take all day. I love lines.”

Woman: *completes the transaction and runs away*

Cashier: “You guys are my favorite customers.”

I’ve been going through a bit of a rough time lately and living from paycheck to paycheck. The day I get paid, I can’t sleep, and I head to the ATM at 4:30 am leaving my partner at home with our two kids.

Since I’m with a bank that has recently shut most of their branches, I have to use a different bank. The ATM gives my card back without the cash before displaying a system error. I check my online banking to find it has taken the money from my account but not actually given me the cash.

I call my bank to find out I have to go into a branch to dispute it and it will take up to two weeks. By the time the bank opens, I’m a complete mess, I have two kids that need nappies and formula, we have no food in the house, both my partner and I need medication, and we have rent to pay.

The first employee fills out a dispute transaction form and then tells me there’s nothing else they can do as I’m receiving government benefits — which actually is this bank’s policy on overdrafts. She then gets the branch manager. The manager spends over an hour on the phone but reassures me that if they can’t sort it out today, she will give me $100 out of her own account to make sure we at least have the basics until it’s sorted out or until my partner gets paid in a few days.

In the end, she manages to get an overdraft for the full amount I am due. I truly believe she would have given me the money from her own account, too. Before I leave she gives me a hug.

To the manager of the branch of a small, out-of-state bank in Melbourne City, if you’re reading this, thank you for going above and beyond for a very stressed-out, crying woman. Your kindness and understanding are amazing.

I’m a fairly young-looking girl. I’ve recently started working a fairly horrible shift — three am to eleven am — sorting parcels to make some extra money for Christmas, around three miles from my home. I don’t drive, so I bought a bike to make life easier, as there’s no one I know that can give me a lift at those sort of times.

This morning I set off from home as usual. It was pretty icy out, and I blamed that for the slight veering and wobbling along the way. About ten minutes in, I realised that my handlebars had misaligned, and were getting looser and looser. Thinking that by the time I got home to take it back I’d be late for work, I decided to just push the d*** thing to work and deal with just being a few minutes late… completely forgetting that the route I take is cycle-based into an industrial area outside of town, and most of the rest of the way is pitch-black and without pavement or a sidewalk. But at least I had my visibility vest from work, and nothing happened apart from being rained on.

I finally finished work at 11, realised that I was exhausted, and I couldn’t risk veering all over the road when there was actual traffic, but at least I could catch a bus halfway and just push my bike the rest. I saw an off-duty bus driver pull up at the parcel depot I was leaving to collect a parcel, and thinking that I’d never tried to take a bike on a bus I should probably ask before detouring to the bus stop. He told me that unless it’s a long journey route, there’s no bike racks or space, and none the city buses in this area allow them. And at that point, I realised how much I’d been counting on the idea of not having to walk the whole hour in the rain. I was exhausted. I managed to hold back the tears that started to form and thanked him for telling me. I began slowly pushing the dang bike in the general direction of home, trying to map a walking route on my nearly-dead phone.

About five minutes later, the same guy pulled over next to me in his not-in-service bus and told me that it wasn’t ideal, but the route to the depot to drop his bus off went quite close to town, and he wouldn’t mind dropping me off.

I almost began to see the world as if I were in some anime, and a shining white Knight was offering to help. My eyes widened and glistened as I could only croak the word, “Really?”

My house was actually nearer the depot than the town centre, and this wonderful person dropped me off less than two minutes from my house, for free. He spent the journey asking questions and taking my mind off how awful I’d been feeling since starting these horrible shifts, and telling me how things will get better.

I know it’s a stupid and small thing in the grand scheme of things, but at that moment it felt like the single nicest thing anyone had ever done for someone. And I’m not one for fuzzy feelings or faith in humanity. But today, at least for a little while, faith in humanity seems like a viable concept.