The Time I Took in a Stranger While Travelling on Business

Yes, I did that. I look back at that moment and wonder now “TL, what the hell were you thinking?” Here’s how it went….

I was traveling a ton for business at the time. Not to age myself but this was about 17 years ago. I was traveling back from Vancouver to Saint John, NB (where I live). Anyone that knows where NB is, knows that we cannot get home from the west coast in one day. I needed to stay in Toronto overnight and catch a morning flight to YSJ.

Warning, I’m about to age myself and if you remember these days, you are my people. I got off the flight, grabbed my luggage, and headed over to the “telephone area” with all of the different hotels and telephones to call a shuttle. This is the aging part that I’m referring to. Picture a whole SETUP of telephones in an area. Corded telephones. Cellphones were few and far between back then. Now, I did have a blackberry, you know the one. The black, hard case holster that you’d wear on your pants for the world to see. Man, I felt so cool wearing that thing around sending people “BBM” messages. Imagine seeing people walking around with their iPhone hooked to their pants? Ahhh anyway, getting off here track TL. Back to the story.

So I go over to the hundred telephones phones and get in line to call a shuttle and I see this young girl standing by herself crying. She’s maybe 15/16 years old. I hop out of line and approach her. I ask her if she’s ok and she tells me that she is traveling from St, Lucia to Florida to visit her grandparents for easter and her flight got cancelled. She wasn’t able to fly out until the next day. (And this was currently like 3pm). She had no credit card so she couldn’t book a hotel.

I’m not sure how it happened but it just came out. What did this Maritimer do? I said “Listen, I am going to stay at a hotel up the street. I can call and get a room with two beds and you can come with me if you like.” She said ok. Really though… what exactly was I thinking?! This could’ve been a whole set up for me to get kidnapped and murdered but that didn’t cross my mind.

So away we went to the hotel. Me and the stranger. I took her to dinner and we went to the mall. There was a language barrier so not a ton of talking went on. We got back to the hotel and I set her up with a wake up call and showed her how to get back to the airport. She was flying out before me. We went to sleep, she got up, and I never saw her again. In fact, I don’t even know her name. I wonder if she remembers me? I’d love to know.

The point of the story is that sometimes in life, we take risks to help others. In our personal lives and in business, we never know who we are going to inspire. I encourage you to think about how you can help someone else today. Maybe it’s a friend, maybe it’s a family member. Seek rather to comfort, than to be comforted.

Happy Saturday!

TL