Suggested by Shaker catvoncat: Inspired by yesterday's QotD from Brenda A.: "Tell about a time (or more than one!) when you have helped a random stranger."
When I lived in Chicago, I lived on the far north side, and, when I took the El home from work, by the time it got to my neighborhood, the train was usually almost entirely empty.
One evening, an elderly woman got on the train a few stops from mine with a grocery cart—not like one that's used as the grocery store, but a personal cart, like one of these, used to carry home one's groceries. And as she harrumphed it over the gap between the platform and the train, one of the wheels came loose.
I could see that she was sort of panicked about how she was going to get her groceries home with a broken cart, so I approached her and asked if she would like some help getting home. She accepted my offer, so I took the train to her stop, just one past my own, and walked home with her, assisting with the broken cart.
Between the two of us, it wasn't that hard to manage it, even with the dodgy wheel. And we had a lovely conversation on the way.
It wasn't a particularly remarkable thing to do, but because the train was almost empty, there weren't a whole lot of people she could have asked, had I not offered and been able to help. And it was probably easier for her to feel comfortable accepting help from another woman.
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