Has this ever happened to you? You head to the grocery store checkout and your credit card is declined. Now you have to take the walk of shame back to your car. When this actually happened to Oregon resident, Len Reed, as he started walking out the doors of Costco he heard a voice say, "Are you good for it?" Reed replied "Of course." Then the stranger in line behind him swiped his credit card for Reed.

Afterwards Reed told his wife, "It seems I needed to say something, to name it out loud: I would not have performed the same kindness for a stranger." His wife agreed that she wouldn't haven't done this for a stranger either. When Reed tracked the man down in order to pay him back, Reed asked what he was thinking. The unidentified man said, "If he pays me, good, he pays me. If he doesn't, well, he doesn't. If you can you do." Reed concludes the article, "The yams were sweet, just like the Costco checker had said they would be. But they were nowhere as memorable as the kindness of a stranger who showed what a good deed really looks like: selfless, random, without expectation."

Source:

Len Reed, “A simple kindness, or perhaps something more,” Oregon Live (1-9-19)