This past week, my view of the world took a beating. Hard truths about human greed smacked me in the face, and the sick, depressing video of a two year old Chinese girl getting run over and ignored by thirteen people really shattered the rose colored glasses I still put on every morning.

Last Sunday, my faith in the world got a little pat in the back.

After mass at UP Diliman, we headed to the shopping center for a light lunch, Rodic’s so the post lunch badminton game wouldn’t have us sluggish and sloshing random food around in our stomachs. I had been craving ice cream for days, longing for (but too lazy to go to) Sebastian’s cookie dough ice cream. I figured I’d soothe my crave monster with a cone from the Fruits in Ice Cream freezer/scooping station in one of the center’s stalls, and get it cheap, with P23 a scoop, I won’t feel gypped and I’d have ice cream in mah belleh.

There was a 40-ish man in line in front of me, buying 2 ice cream cones for him and his son, who was outside the stall. I kept my distance as he had already told off his son to not wander off. I remember he ordered a mango scoop for his son and a strawberry one for himself. Handing the mango one to his son, he repeated his order to the lady who was scooping. He then turned to me and asked “Ano sayo? (What are you getting?)” and I said green tea. I figured he was asking because 1. He was making conversation. 2. He was trying to get the lady to hurry up as she was quite slow. 3. He was the owner and was making the lady go faster for customers. What I didn’t expect was for him to repeat my order to the lady scooping up ice creams, and repeating his order of a strawberry scoop. After the lady handed him my green tea, he said “What a healthy order.” to me, and told the lady that he was paying for my ice cream. He then handed me my ice cream and said “Have a great day.”

Dumbfounded, I said, thank you and shuffled out the stall in shock. It was so random, so nice, and so perfect for the week of harsh truths and crazy news items that I had, that I could only go back to Rodic’s (where the rest of my family was) and tell them about the story.

So Mr. Ice Cream man, thank you. You just made this girl’s Sunday better, and restored her faith in the human race.