This is a follow up post to "Buying Dinner for a Stranger (Again)".
Last week my family went to a local restaurant and anonymously bought dinner for a mother and her son. If you've been following the blog you know this is inspired by topple #0000002, and that last week we were focused on doing what we could to improve our odds of having the recipient of dinner (and of domino #0000002-8) find the Domino Theory blog and report back. After doing this a few weeks before and not getting a comment on the blog (see post "Bummer"), we were a bit nervous. But, what ended up happening was even more than we could have ever expected!
So, here's how the evening went....
We spent a long time trying to find "the right couple." We eventually decided on two people sitting a few tables away. The woman had her back to us, but we could see the man clearly (young guy in his twenties). We were getting the "vibe" that they were having a serious conversation (not a lot of laughing, smiling, etc.). He had a piece of paper out, so we thought they might be work associates or something.
After making our final decision that this was the right couple we informed the waiter of our intentions. This time we also gave him a domino, hoping he might come to the website and learn more. I was a little nervous at this point because the hand writing on the domino had smudged a bit. We decided to proceed anyways.
The next things we know, the waiter tells us that the couple was told that their dinner taken care of, then hands us their bill, and the couple stands up and quietly leaves. Now, usually the couple is more animated than this. They might try to get the waiter to "bust" us, or they scan the restaurant trying to figure out who "done it." Not this time. From our perspective it was like "oh, ok, thanks, bye." I remember my wife and I saying to each other "that was weird." Of course we were still hopeful that one of them would go home and check out the blog, but at the time it didn't feel "right."
Then, things changed...
First of all, the waiter came by and said the couple was "very grateful." That they had remarked how special the timing was for something like this. Of course that made us feel good, but it didn't explain why they acted like nothing happened. Then he told us that he stressed to them that we didn't want to be "found out" which was why they played it "cool" and just left. Ahh... OK, things are looking up. But little did we know that the best parts were still to come.
As we waited for our check the manager of the restaurant came up and said, "Now it's my turn to return the favor to you guys!" She then handed us a very nice gift certificate. In fact, for more money then we spent on our dinner that night. We set a domino in motion and ended up with a net gain (and not just from the karma this time)! She mentioned that she heard about people buying coffee for people at Starbucks and wanted to find a way to do something like that. Pretty cool!
In over 13 years of us buying dinner for strangers, never has anything like this happened. We usually get told "wow, that's a great tradition" but to actually receive a "pay it forward" was amazing.
We went home feeling pretty good, and then as my wife was putting the kids to bed I yelled upstairs, "They posted a comment!". I read aloud the comment to my wife and kids and we did high-5s all around. I can't express fully what it was like to see the topple in motion. Joyful for sure.
The woman who posted is named Claire, and you can see two comments from her at the bottom of the original #0000002 post. You must read them!
So many cool things have happened since I've been working on the Domino Theory blog. Each day I become more convinced that talking about Domino Theory is making a small difference in the world. To receive a gift certificate from the restaurant and then see Claire's comments shows that you get back more then you put in when you do something nice for people.
Put another way, in Domino Theory the overall impact of the topple reaches well beyond the original stated purpose. Based on the comments and emails I'm receiving lately I know other people agree.
Cool, huh?!
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