Someone did something very nice for me the other day and paid the $31 I owed for my California driver’s license. My credit card wasn’t working and the DMV employee was about to cancel the application, which I had waited an hour to submit. A woman standing next to me happened to overhear and insisted on covering it.

And even as she was swiping her card and signing the receipt for me, my mind lurched forward to everything I’d have to do…

go to CVS pick out a thank you card or make one but i’m not 6 years old write something “thank you so much!” gay “thanks!” flippant “thanks so much” ok I guess put in $40? demeaning? exactly $31 like grateful but need the cash? Does she more than me? “thanks with interest ;)” no idiot need a stamp give email address? Please confirm you. Start sending me chain letters… etc.

And now it’s 3 days later and I still haven’t sent her the money and the dread is kind of paralyzing. This is why I’m ambivalent about random acts of kindness. It’s not because it puts me in a position of weakness or because I’m suspicious of altruism or anything like that.

It’s because the nausea of having to pay it forward or just pay it back, the utter joylessness in scanning walls of Hallmark cards, the impersonal sense of obligation that will poison whatever I do, these things point strongly to me not being a very good person, especially compared to someone who unblinkingly swipes her credit card for a total stranger at the DMV.