Bus seat

Last Sunday I had to use a bus, and as soon as I got in a very crowded one, I was ready to spend at least 30 minutes standing crushed with other passengers as is usually the case with many of the buses in Malta. However, a young lady, maybe 20 to 25 years old, probably a tourist, as soon as she saw me, gave up her seat for me to sit. At first, I politely refused, but she insisted, and I sat down. My first thought, of course, was 'do I look like an elderly person?' We were always taught to give up our seat for an elderly person, nuns, priests and pregnant women. And many times I did that gesture which was always appreciated. But I never thought the time will come that younger people would offer me their seat. However, I instantly made a resolution that if an elderly person comes on the bus, I will give up my seat, and sure enough, two stages later, an elderly lady comes on and I gave her my seat. So here I was standing again crushed, this time close to the young girl who had originally given me her seat. I wanted to thank her, but she was so absorbed listening to her iPod with ear-phones, that she must have realized that the elderly lady deserved the seat more than I did. Yes, there are good samaritans still in this world, and as they say, a kind gesture deserves another one. A good deed by an unknown tourist ended up in one of my blog posts and surely will end up in one of my homilies, sooner or later.