bella believes in random acts of kindness. so much so that she occasionally, based on some regimen she follows, schedules a random act of kindness. over the christmas break this kindness was to bake a from-scratch apple pie to give to someone. she gave marty her shopping list and then with the proper ingredients in hand, bella made her pie. once done and somewhat cooled, bella donned her shoes and coat and set off for the other side of the neighborhood to give the pie to one of her dog/house sitting clients.

as the house came into view the wheels in her mind spooled up and questioned the level of randomness to her act. it was true that they weren't expecting it but in that they had some level of relationship it wasn't completely, totally, wildly, unpredictably random. as this thought took shape in her head, bella stopped walking, about three doors away from her destination. she turned to the house she was in front of and confirmed that she didn't know these people. without further contemplation she turned and walked to the front door, ringing the bell.

the door swung open and a semi-surprised man greeted her. bella began her introduction:

hi. i'm bella. i live a few blocks away. and every now and again i do random acts of kindness and today is one of those days and yours is the random house i'm stopping at. i have a homemade pie here i'd like to give to you but there is one condition that comes with it. if you take it and if you eat it, then you must sometime in the future perform a random act of kindness for someone. if you agree with that, then i would like to offer you this pie.

the man agreed. it turns out that the man at that moment was holding a holiday party. after accepting the pie he leaned into the main room and yelled at the crowd, "this girl just dropped this homemade apple pie off, hot out of the oven, and it's for us to eat but if you eat any of it, then you must do a random act of kindness for someone you don't know. and if you aren't going to do that, then you can't have any pie." this call was met with loud and excited whoops from the other room.

sometimes our plans don't go as nicely as we might hope. and other times our plans go way better than we could have ever hoped for.