Gary was walking home from work one particularly sunny evening and came across a little bird that had obviously fallen out of its nest. It was still alive, but it seemed to have hurt its leg. He looked around to see if its mother was nearby, and decided to take it home and hopefully take care of it. He lined a shoebox with paper towel, and hand fed it small pieces of his dinner as he ate. He gave it some water, and by the time he went to sleep that night, it looked like the little bird was making progress.

The next day, after feeding the bird some of his scrambled eggs, Gary headed off to work, where he was a consultant at a small firm across town. His boss, Trish, met him at the door, and Gary could tell that something was troubling her.

"Oh Gary, it's just some personal stuff. I'm having a bad morning."

After some discussion, Gary learned that Trish's mother was sick and in the hospital just this morning, but she was wrapped up in client meetings all day, and didn't have time to go see her. Gary, who was involved in a few of the projects, offered to oversee a few of the meetings for her. This gave Trish enough time to see her mother, and she had tears in her eyes as she thanked him over and over.

One week passed by, and Gary continued to take care of the little bird (which he had named Trooper and talked to while he read the newspaper), and do everything he could for Trish so she could take care of her mother.

Well, one morning Gary woke up to find that Trooper had died during the night. He carried him on his way to work, back to the spot he had found him a week ago, and buried him with a gardening shovel he brought from home.

Arriving at work slightly upset, but happy that he had helped as much as he could have, Trish noticed the gardening shovel he was carrying.

"Oh, I had to bury my pet bird, Trooper, this morning. He died last night," he explained.

"Oh, Gary, this isn't your day, is it?" Trish asked, with the troubled look in her eyes again.

She went on to explain that, despite all the business they'd had in the past month, it wasn't enough to support the company. Since Gary was the least senior employee, he would have to be let go by the end of the week. The brightness returned to her eyes when he asked about her mother.

"She's getting out in a few days, and she's been doing really well!"

Gary was happy to hear this, and helped her for the rest of the week with some extra work so she could help move her mother out of the hospital.

Gary went to his doctor after his last day of work at the firm with something that felt like the flu. He ended up getting a chest x-ray, which revealed that he had contracted Histoplasmosis, which was often associated with contact with bird droppings.

As Gary sat in the doctor's office, he didn't wonder how such bad luck had plagued him. He didn't think his bad fortune was unfair, considering all the nice things he did that week. Gary didn't worry about these things because he wasn't under the impression that he deserved a reward, however unexpected, for his decent behaviour.

Gary wasn't worrying about any of these things because he was a decent and kind person.

He didn't believe in make believe fables, or Chicken Soup books, or chain letter sob stories, because he knew those things were for people who needed a reason to be decent and kind, other than plain simple desire to be a decent and kind person. He knew that most people who could use his help were just normal people like him, and that fantastic stories about rewards for kindness were made up. He helped those people because they needed help, not because he wanted to be rewarded.

Most of all, though, Gary wondered if people who needed that kind of contrived materialistic motivation were half as decent as they believed they were.

Sometimes we think we have it rough...

WHEN LIFE HANDS YOU LEMONS,MAKE LEMONADE!    

or you can make a yummy Tom Collins..  

Smoke and Mirrors. I think we will but out ime hasn't come yet. I think the USA will take us down with them. About the Tom Collins can you make that 5.

wow, what a story!