Don't tell anyone. That's right tell NOBODY. Don't tell the neighbors, don't tell anyone. and WHATEVER you do don't post it on Facebook or Nextdoor! It's between us and ONLY us.
Keep you damned mouth shut and your fingers off the keyboard.
If you have not figured it out by now you're probably either naive or outright stupid.
Let's say your leg is broken and I shovel your driveway. It's a decent thing to do. So you go running your mouth all around town and it either makes people jealous or they call me and ask me to do theirs. "I just thought because you helped out Widow Jones, you might like to do me a favor."
I don't. If I had wanted to I would have offered. You ain't an old widow with a broken leg. Because I refused I'm now the bad guy. Thanks a lot, jerk. You ran your mouth or your keyboard and told everyone I did you a favor. Thanks for nothing. See if I ever help you out again. Get off your own dead ass and on to your own dying feet and shovel your own driveway out you lazy slug. Whaddaya think I'm as stupid as you are?
I'm a grownup. I can handle things. First of all if you put me in a lurch like that I will never, ever do you another favor again. I will let you lie there with a broken leg in the freezing cold and walk away and leave you to your own survival.
What REALLY sucks is when you're a youngster and get held up as the shining example of Virtous American Youth. Ain't three kids in a thousand that want to have THAT jacket pinned on them. Most of them just want to be left alone to fly under the radar. It's as bad if not worse than having a troublemaker jacket pinned on them. Personally as a kid I would have accepted the troublemaker jacket, hands down. Most kids likely would, also.
In fact there's probably a lot of kids out there that would not do someone a favor because they don't want to get a goodie two-shoes jacket pinned on them. The know how stupid a lot of adults are. Too many of them don't know how to keep their mouths shut.
There is little worse for a kid than hearing his buddies tease him and call him a little goodie two-shoes. In some neighborhoods the kid gets a lot worse than teased. The get beaten up.
By bring a teenager's good deed into the public eye you are doing him no favors whatsoever. In fact what you are likely doing is something to make YOU feel good.
If nothing will do but the good deed doer must be rewarded, feel free to do so but do it privately. Do as you see fit. Make them brownies, cookies, chili, whatever. Bake them an apple pie. Send them over a bottle of bourbon or a six-pack if they are of age. If you send over a six-pack and they are under age they will probably remember you for life and laugh about it for decades after they get older. Not that it's a good idea... Still, you get the point. Whatever you do, please do it privately. ESPECIALLY to youngsters.
Of course there are a few readers out there that are going to embarrass some teenager anyway. You're going to pay back their act of kindness by embarrassing them in front of their friends or even getting them roughed up. Some payment! But I suppose it's OK if it makes YOU feel good about yourself.
If that happens don't be surprised to come home to a smoking pile of ashes because the same kid that has the moxie to climb a tree to rescue your cat probably has enough moxie to vandalize your property. Don't ask me for sympathy. I'll tell you that you did it to yourself and that stupid hurts. Actually stupid should hurt.
To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this:
http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY
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