A Sinner’s Lent Day 5: Doing (Awkward) Good Deeds

I cleaned out my closet this morning and took about one-third of its contents to Conshy Consignment to benefit St. Matt’s.

Can we have a moment of Conshy Consignment, by the way? You can take your new-ish clothes there, they sell them, and your portion (40 percent) of the sale price can be donated to St. Matt’s.  As a parishioner who is relatively broke at the moment but spent all of her post-college-living-with-parents money at Ann Taylor and Banana Republic, this could do wonders for my tithing (I know…. tithing isn’t about that…please don’t rain on my parade, I’m really broke).

Walking out the door after dropping off my clothes, I saw a woman with her dog (I hate dogs…this becomes important later), who was looking at the “last chance” rack. She had something in her hands that she clearly wanted to buy, and I could tell she was struggling with the dog being all whiney and dog-like, but she was just kind of standing there strangely.

So I keep walking to my car…when it occurred to me, maybe she needs someone to hold her dog on the leash while she goes inside to pay for the “last chance” find?

I had a bit of an angel/devil back and forth for a few steps…mostly about the awkwardness of saying “hey, do you need me to hold your dog?” … But the angel won out, and I turned around and asked the lady.

She was very appreciative, and ran inside the store….and the dog started flipping out.

All these crazy scenarios were going through my mind as I was waiting...struggling to keep the dog from busting through the door of the shop.

What if the dog gets away? What if the lady never comes back out and this was all a ploy to get rid of her dog? I AM NOT READY TO BE A MOTHER!! (told you they were crazy). Other thoughts included how much I didn't like dogs.

The woman came out (thank goodness, no doggy motherhood for me), and she was appreciative yet again.  The dog didn’t seem too sad to see me go.

As we both walked away (while smelling my hand that now had the aroma of dog, barf) I was proud of myself for stepping far enough out of my comfort zone to ask this woman if I could help. I was also kind of shocked that she let me … Not everyone would trust another person on the street to watch their pet.

It made me realize that these opportunities to help people are probably all around me (us), and I (we) am/are probably too blind sometimes to notice them.

So, I’m going to keep an eye out from now on. 

More on my Lenten Journey:

A Sinner's Lent Day 4: The Walking Dead is Bad?

A Sinner's Lent Day 3: Family Strife

A Sinner's Lent Day 2: Appreciating Loved Ones

A Sinner's Lent Day 1: Not Cursing is Hard

Lent: Sinner Style