No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

Today I was walking along in the hallway, minding my own business, trying to keep my eyes open (I have a tendency to sleepwalk in the halls these days).

Well, while walking, I encounter this elderly man who is stooping over near a door. He has dropped his coffee mug and papers, and he is fiddling with the lock to an office. It is probably well-known to most of you that I am a nice girl. I will go out of my way to help someone. So, I did just that. I bent over to pick up this man's coffee and papers while he continues to feebly fiddle with impossible lock.

I wait for him. I tap my foot. I look around. It's not like I have anything better to do.

Well, this man finally opens the door. I hand him his mug and his papers, and he says to me: "Well, thank-you very much. It's nice to have a servant." I stood dumbfounded at the door as he walks away. A servant. Does the fact that I'm a nice girl automatically demote me to the status of a servant?

Maybe I should have been offended, or maybe I should have laughed it off.
Maybe he's a chauvinist; maybe he's not. Maybe I'm just thinking way too much about this silly little anecdote. Regardless, it made me laugh. However, let's all hope that my Dudley-Do-Right deeds don't get me in trouble one day. I can see it unfolding now, on a NYC side street: "Here, let me grab those papers for you" as a dubious figure shoves me into the back of some derelict minivan. Maybe the world is a dangerous place for nice girls (in more ways than one) . . .
. . . but maybe nice girls make the dangerous world a better place.