The Coffee Fairy

It snowed just a little bit early Friday morning but it was enough that all of the maintenance workers and superintendents were up with the sun, shoveling snow and salting sidewalks.  I, of course, was also out and on my way to work.  My timing was off so I missed the cross-town bus.  I passed the donut and coffee cart on 9th Avenue and 50th Street, where a couple of people were in line, and kept walking toward the building that takes up about half of the whole block.  There was a maintenance worker using a (probably oversized) snow blower to clear the building's sidewalk.  It was obviously a physically demanding job and I paused to let him finish his sweep across the sidewalk, which gave the man who just finished at the coffee cart time to catch up to me.  He walked up to the maintenance worker, two coffees in his hand, and said, "Good morning!  Would you like a coffee?  I bought this to thank you for your work and to warm you up a bit."  The maintenance worker, a bewildered look on his face, took the coffee and warmed his hands for a moment.  Then he took a sip, exhaled, and gave the man a big smile of thanks.  I continued on my journey to the Bronx with a big smile on my face, thinking, "Thank goodness there are people like that in the world!"