Back in August, I started thinking about what it meant to hit bottom. I was walking into a Wendy’s just off of Highway 435 in Kansas City with an armful of my belongings, after watching my car be loaded onto a tow truck for the second time in less than two months. I was fresh off a temper tantrum that began with my car overheating, progressed to me punching the ground in frustration, and ended with my even-tempered girlfriend convincing me that things would be OK. I had hit an impressive string of unforeseen expenses and general misfortune. Walking into the restaurant with my ego shaken and my financial future seemingly in shambles, a question occurred to me:

“At what point does it stop being bad luck and start being something else?”

It’s not just now, months later having had the chance to reflect, that I realize how pathetic that sounds. As soon as the thought entered my mind, I tried to push it out. It was exactly the sort of sad negativity I don’t normally carry around. And yet…there it was.

I couldn’t let it all sink in yet, because I stopped to hold the door for an elderly couple on their way out of the restaurant. My mind was somewhere else, so I’m sure I looked distracted when the man asked me if I lived nearby.

“No, not really,” I told him, thinking he needed directions. “What are you looking for?”

“Well, we’d be happy to give you a ride if you needed one,” he said.

You know that part in movies where the bad guy suddenly realizes that he’s reached the end of the line and his misdeeds have finally caught up to him? That was me, as I was interrupted in the middle of my own little pity party. Here was this couple, owing me nothing, offering me a bit of help in a moment when I needed nothing more than some human compassion. And there it was.

A few weeks later, and in my car (which, as it turned out, only needed a new water pump) on my way to work, I realized I needed gas and soon. I felt for my wallet before I pulled into a station and realized I didn’t have it. It was exceptionally odd, because I’m a fairly systematic person. Each night, I put my bag, coat, wallet and keys in the exact same place so I won’t forget any of it as I rush out in the morning. Somehow, on this particular day, I’d left the wallet sitting in its spot while I hurried off to work.

This wasn’t a “kind of need gas, but I can wait until I get home” day. It was a “I need to put something in this car’s tank or I’m not making it home” day. So I dug through the coins I had and managed two full dollars worth of quarters. Fantastic. The only obstacle now was that I had to stop in one of Kansas City’s…uh…rougher neighborhoods. But I was desperate, so I turned down my internal voice of reason and ducked into the station to pre-pay my 200 cents.

I was standing in line, counting out the eight coins to be sure when I heard someone directly behind me ask, “Hey, what are you doing in my neighborhood?”

When I told this story to friends later, they all asked if I thought I was getting robbed. Honestly, I didn’t. There wasn’t enough time to compile the data (which, had there been, I would have come to the conclusion that I was being robbed). Instead, I looked up and saw the familiar face of my junior high friend and college roommate, Ryan.

“What the hell? What are you doing here?” I asked him, convinced I was in some kind of Twilight Zone moment. None of it made any sense: me being without my wallet, being in this neighborhood on this day and him being there, too.

“What the hell are YOU doing here?” he shot back.

I told him the story, declined his offer to buy me a tank of gas and told him I’d go straight home to get my wallet. He left and I got back in line. There was only one person in front of me and I readied my quarters. The customer in front of me finished and I stepped up, but he stopped me. He was holding two $1 bills.

“Here you go,” he said. “I hope this helps.”

A minute earlier, I would have pictured this man more likely to ask me for money than to give it to me. I tried to decline, but he insisted.

“I hope it helps,” he repeated, and walked out.

So much had to happen for the whole situation to happen the way it did. I needed to forget my wallet, I needed to miss a turn into the previous gas station I had meant to go to, I needed my friend to be in the parking lot at that exact moment, and I needed the generous man in front of me to hear the story. No matter how many times I run it through my head, I can’t force it to make sense. It’s just too many coincidences. I’m not saying it was any kind of supreme message or anything, but I’ll say this: when I’m the age of the couple who offered me a ride home, I likely won’t remember why I felt so desperate on a day of car trouble, but I’ll remember that their offer of a ride made me feel a lot better and changed my perspective, and there’s no way I’ll ever forget about the day I forgot my wallet.

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