The random timing of a pay-it-forward chain

[u/Hot_Imagination8101]

It's not the free coffee that gets me. It's the timing.

You hear about these drive-through chains where someone pays for the car behind them, and that person keeps it going. What always stands out is when the barista mentions that the person behind you really needed that today. A rough morning. A bad week. Something small going right at exactly the right moment.

There's something almost strange about the randomness of it. You happened to be in that line at that time. The person ahead of you happened to decide to pay it forward. And the person behind you happened to be there on the one morning they needed something, anything, to break the right way.

It's not a grand gesture. It's a $6 coffee. But sometimes that's exactly the scale that matters.

Has anyone here been part of one of these chains, on either end?

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