Two-Dollar Trust.
I had my dinner at Yishun yesterday. This particular Malay food stall unfortunately did not sell gado-gado. My loss! Sigh. Well, as long as there was this menu called ‘sambal goreng’, I could always enjoy it.
So I ordered a simple meal: white rice, sambal goreng, tempe and paru. Cost me $2. Cheaper than I expected. Perhaps because too many stalls nearby, thus the competition was tight.
But still I was surprised when the old lady told me to enjoy my meal first, to buy a drink and then to pay her as she didn’t have a small change.
It’s after all a big hawker centre and how it is easy for me to eat my meal, to buy a drink and just to leave the old lady with an important lesson of life of not trusting people that easy. Hey, for me it sounded as much as the old lady was naïve despite her old age.
Uhm, the capacity of thinking evil does not mean that I’ll enact it. *heh, a bit defensive here*
So I bought the drink, with a tray of meal on one hand and walked back to the Malay stall and paid the lady her due. She asked me why I didn’t eat first. I just grinned and shrugged.
I guess the yesterday lesson was people have to take a risk to trust others. Or perhaps the old lady was the wise one; she knew that she could trust me. Perhaps experience has taught her to discern who the cheater is and who is not.
Sure the sarcastic me inwardly whispered, “That’s just 2 dollars. Think the old lady will do the same if the stake is, say, 200 dollars? Think you will do the same of paying her first?”
I should say without doubt that I’d do the same. Some principles are just too solid to be shattered.
PS. Upon re-reading this article before posting it online, I realize it conveys rather a pompous message. That’s not the intention. The objective of this article is we all have some principles or values that we might have forgotten that we need others—even strangers—to remind us about them principles.
PPS. Even that PS still sounds pompous. *groan* What I want to say is that it's such a nice feeling when you are trusted by a stranger and nicer the feeling is when you choose not to abuse that trust.