Who's Up for a Happy Story? Woman Pays a Complete Stranger's Grocery Bill Because He's a Veteran and Her Employer Rewards Her For It

SourceAn employee at LEGOLAND Florida was rewarded by her employer for a selfless act while in line getting groceries.

Donna Adams said she has always had a soft spot in her heart for veterans. A few days ago, she went beyond the call of duty to help one in trouble, and she dug deep into her wallet to do it. …

Adams was in the Lake Wales Walmart when she noticed a man on the phone at the customer service desk. He was yelling at the person on the other end of the line.

Adams found out the man was talking to his bank, trying to get money from his account to pay for his groceries, but couldn’t. As she watched, she asked another customer if they knew how much the man’s unpaid bill was.

“He said it was $546. It was like, ‘Oh, I can’t do that, I really can’t,’” Adams recalled.

But she happened to have some extra money, which she normally wouldn’t. She talked to her daughter and decided to reconsider.

She hasn’t looked back.

“I walked out of there. I had no regrets, no second thoughts, no nothing,” she commented.

When her employer at LEGOLAND Florida found out what Adams had done, the park reimbursed her, gave her an extra week of vacation, and booked five nights at a hotel on Anna Maria Island.

Adams never found out the man’s name and she didn’t want to give him her name.

I’ll be the first to admit that this is one of those stories you see them do a feature on during the morning shows to give you some happy news to start your day with. Or the kind your mom posts on Facebook once she’s run out of new dog pictures. And I’ll admit that in the grand scheme of things, $546 doesn’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. But in the words of the great Lt. Frank Drebin, this is our hill. These are our beans.

When you spend all day everyday staring into the Black Mirror, eventually it starts to stare back at you. Civilization is falling apart before our very screens. And while I’m only too happy to sit here monitoring, chronicling and mocking the collapse until the Apocalypse stops taking its sweetass time and finally gets here, sometimes you need a break.

Consider this a little palate cleanser. That taste of minty goodness when you brush your teeth after powering down coffee all morning. A little reminder that there’s still some humanity left in … well, humanity.

I haven’t the first clue how much a worker who wears a lanyard and a golf shirt at LEGOLAND makes. But I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that $546 is more than just discretionary funds. That it probably meant digging into money Donna Adams needs for essentials. To buy her own groceries. To pay her own bills. And she voluntarily gave it to someone she’s never met and might never see again. Just out of a sense of duty, paying him back for the sacrifices he made on behalf of all of us. And just to be kind. To simply be kind. Something that’s in short supply everywhere you look.

Obviously we should all rejoice that the successful mega-corporation she works for found out and rewarded her for it. But as good as getting her money back, a week off and free stay at a resort is, I’m guessing doing a solid by a veteran in need was its own reward. I hope so. I also hope the people running this country into the ground will make it so no veteran ever needs a stranger’s help just to pay for his groceries. But that’s for another day. I don’t want to kill the buzz this story is giving me. Once in a while, everything really is awesome.