I hear Toronto is considered a cold city, and I don’t mean the temperature. We are not known for our kindness. In fact, it was even used by Coors Light in an ad slogan, until some Torontonians complained and they decided to pull the ads.
Photograph by: Steve Bosch, Vancouver Sun
Great. Now we will probably be dubbed The Humourless Ones on top of being arrogant, rude, and unkind.
Despite what is said about Toronto, our city has its fair share of kind people too.
On Tuesday evening, I was on my way to meet a friend to watch a debate panel about the concept of time. It was one of the few times that I took the TTC, and I had all my coins ready for the subway fare filled to the brim in a film canister — all in quarters, nickels, and dimes.
Just as I feared, as I carefully took the lid off the canister, the dimes made a quick escape.
“Oh great,” I thought. “I’m not about to block a bunch of people to pick up eighty cents. I guess I’ll just put in a five and ask for change.”
I was about to keep walking. The woman behind me impatiently pushed her way past as the coins were still spinning around.
In front of me, however, was a man who looked to be in his twenties. He did not look like he had much. He turned around when he heard the scattering coins, walked back and wordlessly began to pick up my coins. I couldn’t just stand there, so I started collecting what I could find too.
We made a few jokes with one another, I thanked him for helping, and he kindly offered me a chocolate bar, which I politely declined. I bid him a good evening as I started counting my fare; he went on his way.
I stood there for another minute or so to count out my fares again (thanks for the fare increase, TTC!).
Eventually, I got the right amount to put in the fare box. As I got to the bottom of the next escalator, I looked up and notice that the same man was taking the escalator back up to where I was, while counting coins in his hands.
I may be mistaken, but it looked like he was going back up to help me pay my fare after noticing that I didn’t come down to the subway platform.
I was all the way at the bottom by that time and couldn’t tell him that I got through. Besides, it might have been a bit presumptuous on my part to think he went back for me.
However, it goes to show that some people in Toronto are kind and helpful. Like I said before, this man really didn’t look like he had much, but he seemed willing to help with what little he had. I am so thankful that there are still people like him among us.
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