Not too long ago, I rode a bus to the middle of town. When I reached my stop, a woman—possibly homeless, based on appearance and demeanor—slowly climbed down the steps ahead of me. As she descended, unsteadily, a bag swinging from her forearm, numerous coins escaped her grip and scattered over a fairly large semicircle on the sidewalk.
Reaching the curb immediately after her, I started chasing and gathering her coins, hoping to contain their rolling radii. They were well launched, so this took longer than expected. As I approached the woman to reunite her with the coins, I noticed that she hadn’t moved to pick up a single coin herself. I confess to a small spike of annoyance.
The woman extended her hand to receive the coins. She didn’t have any fingers. She thanked me.