I don't know where y'all live but we had one heck of an ice storm here yesterday.  As much as I love staring out my window at the ice covered tree, I hate ice storms.  They are so crazy dangerous.  I've never seen one quite this crazy either.  Walking the dog was insane.  We were both slipping and sliding all over the place.  And she couldn't figure out what it was so she kept leaning down to lick the sidewalk.  I mean, of course she's seen ice before.  We live in the bloody North Pole.  But this was solid ice that sounded the same as when you walk on a frozen pond.  All creeky and cracky and spooky. 

When the weather gets really bad around here, most people clear their cars off and then move them into one of the parking decks for the night.  Then we just go get our cars out in the morning before it reverts back to a pay deck for the local offices (Remember I live in a downtown area of a small city so most people don't have garages- it's all row houses.  Like DC or Boston.  But not as cool and with a total lack of good shopping.).  So apparently as my dad was leaving the parking deck to walk home (it's a block away), he dropped his keys.  But I actually picked him up outside to come with me to run a few errands and grab dinner.  So he didn't notice until hours later when he was trying to get back into his house.  We were gone for a few hours as the roads were a total mess and driving was sloooow. 

So when he realized his keys were gone, we drove back to the parking garage to look for them.  Not there.  We figured (hoped) they fell out of his pocket as he was putting his gloves back on when we left the grocery store.  He thought that pulling the gloves out of the pocket might have also pulled out the keys.  They must be in the entry way of the grocery store.  And since we (read: I.  The reason he came with me is because no matter how old I am, to him I will always be daddy's little girl who needs help in ice storms.  And I often do so who am I to complain.) were the only fools in the grocery store during a bad storm, we figured there was a good chance we would find them again.  So back we drove.

As we were about half way there, dad's phone rang.  It was a woman who works at our local food co-op.  Some guy found my dad's keys in the parking garage.  Noticed the little membership tag for the co-op on the key ring (which is actually the only thing on his key ring and he just finally stuck it on there last week) and walked over to ask if they could call the owner of the keys.  Some amazing stranger walked about four blocks in a freezing rain ice storm to turn in keys.  Then the girl from the store called my dad several times (he didn't see the missed calls until after he hung up with her) to let him know they were safe and sound.  The store was closing and we were not going to make it back in time.  But she told dad where she was headed to eat (just a local pizza place) so he could meet her there. 

And as much as I whine about not having fancy stores and restaurants open on Sundays, moments like this make me grateful to live in a small town.  Only in a small community would you find two good Samaritans going so out of their way in the middle of a wicked storm to help out a stranger.  Makes you feel all warm and cozy inside, doesn't it!  A good reminder that it's free to be nice and have a major impact on strangers.