Yes, it's true!

This is an excerpt from a book that I recently read. It is called ‘The Last Lecture’ written by Randy Pausch with Jeffry Zaslow. (hope this is legal...).

‘When I was twelve years old and my sister was fourteen, our family went to Disney World in Orlando. Our parents figured we were just old enough to roam a bit around the park without being monitored. In those days before cell phones, Mom and Dad told us to be careful, picked a spot where we would meet ninety minutes later, and then they let us take off.

Think of the thrill that was! We were in the coolest place imaginable and we had the freedom to explore it on our own. We were also extremely grateful to our parents for taking us there, and for recognizing we were mature enough to be by ourselves. So we decided to thank them by pooling our allowances and getting them a present.

We went into a store and found what we considered the perfect gift: a ceramic salt and pepper shaker featuring two bears hanging off a tree, each one holding a shaker. We paid ten dollars for the gift, headed out of the store, and skipped up Main Street in search of the next attraction.

I was holding the gift, and in a horrible instant, it slipped out of my hands. The thing broke on impact. My sister and I were both in tears.

An adult guest in the park saw what happened and came over to us. “Take it back to the store,” she suggested. “I’m sure they’ll give you a new one.”

“I can’t do that,” I said. “It was my fault. I dropped it. Why would the store give us another one?”

“Try anyway,” the adult said. “You never know.”

So we went back to the store...and we didn’t lie. We explained what happened. The employees in the store listened to our sad story, smiled at us...and told us we could have a new salt and paper shaker. They even said it was their fault because they hadn’t wrapped the original salt and pepper shaker well enough! Their message was , “Our packaging should have been able to withstand a fall due to a twelve-year-old’s overexcitement.” ‘

-The Last Lecture, chapter 50 ‘The $100,000 Salt and Pepper Shaker’ (2008, Randy Pausch)

This is one of the unforgettable stories that the writer shares in the book. It is amazing how people can be so surprisingly generous. Though, not many will experience this kind of experience, it is nice to know how wonderful a human being can be...

:) xoxo