Random Acts of Kindness Linky Party and a FREEBIE

Yesterday, I was super-busy, on my way for my last minute little vacay to Las Vegas (a first for me).  I had about one million errands to run before my 2:00 p.m. flight.  One was to return to Office Depot, where the night before I had bought 25 three-ring binders for my kiddos at 67 cents each!!!  Only, they charged me $1.99 each.  So I had to go in and get that fixed.  Anyway, I was also exchanging some ink (I ALWAYS buy the wrong kind), so while the cashier waited for a manager to do the price adjustment, I found the right ink.  When I came back to the register, there was an older lady standing there, too.  I apologized for her having to wait on my exchanges, but she replied that she had some mess of her own to take care of.  I thought she had a STAR Teacher Rewards flier in her hand, so I asked if she was a teacher.  She said, "No, but if you are, thank you.  You are wonderful, but underpaid, and doing the world a real service.  I had a best friend, who was a teacher, and she died just last month."  Of course, I was already about to cry.  By this time, my binder deal was done, and the ink exchange began.  I asked the cashier if I was going to owe extra, or if the prices were the same...whatever.  I owed $16.74, she told me, and as I tried to reach over to the credit card scanner, the lady, with whom I'd been talking said, "I'm paying."  I told her absolutely not and tried, again, to reach over her to pay, but she elbowed me away and paid for my ink exchange.  That really did make me cry (all the way to the car), but I was able to mumble a thank you, and ask her name so that I could tell my students she paid for their binders (which was basically true).  She said, "Just tell them it was that Chicago lady, and it was a random act of kindness in honor of her teacher-friend."  OH MY WORD!  How incredibly sweet was that???

So, my next errand was to go to Best Buy to spend my rewards bucks ($35).  I walked in, where they greeted me with a how are you today, and I said, "I'm happy, because I have these," and showed them the voucher thingies.  "But," I said, "I don't know how to use them, or what I should get.  I'm a teacher, so is there any great software or something you'd recommend?"  A lady, who seemed to be the manager took over immediately and asked if I wanted something for myself or my students, when I remembered that I really wanted to get new ear buds for my kiddos, because it really grosses me out that they all use the same ones.  I asked her how much they were, and how many she thought I could get with my $35.  She led me over to the area where they were, and I noticed super-cute lime green, hot pink, purple, and turquoise ones, but they were $11.99 each, and the black ones were only $9.99.  She immediately said, "Let me check my margin on these and see what I can do."  I said, "You don't give teacher discounts," but she said, "I can if I want to."  She led me to the front of the line, where she gave me all four colors for $9.99 each.  Again, how sweet?  She DID tell me her name - Krista, and I told her I would teach my students about random acts of kindness, because she was the second one today.  WOW!

Finally, it was off to the airport, where I was upgraded to a better seat, for free, sat next to a very friendly new flight attendant (in her 1st month), transferred to another plane in Charlotte, where I was again upgraded to a better seat, and got a free glass of wine, and, while working on some common core junk, met a nice guy who helped me learn about 50 new Microsoft Office things in about 5 minutes (we're both married, so it wasn't that kind of meeting a guy).  What's up with all that?  I say, it's going to be a GREAT school year, because it has started with some really awesome random acts of kindness.

Before you go back to work, be sure to get your random acts in!  Here's mine, to you...for 24 hours, my newest product on TPT is FREE.  It's called Today's Number Editable Stickers & Task Cards.  Click here to download your free copy, but be quick, it's just one day!
Brooke