Helping People

Anyone who knows FMA is probably going O-O right now.
That's so cool!
That was a great part of the series. See, I bought that book (Where Izumi dumps Ed and Al on the island) when I was up in Reno, so I read it a couple times and thought about it a lot during my vacation.
The All is One, One is All kinda fits in to what I wanted to post about, actually.
OK. So, Everyone is connected in some way. Even the briefest meeting creates a connection. You can make that connection larger in many ways (I know I read something like this in a manga. I'm trying to remember which one it was...).
People don't make enough connections. If you meet a stranger, usually you just pass them by. If someone asks to borrow your cell phone, you make an excuse and hurry away. Not that there aren't reasons for it. People in our society are really paranoid that they're going to be attacked by strangers. But that's not always the reason. Sometimes it's just too weird to continue a conversation that someone else starts.
So, last wednesday, I took the train home. I took out my phone to call Dad and tell him when to pick me up. Except when I dialed, it said that my account was out of money and I couldn't make a call. That was definitely not true though because I'd just bought a years worth of service about a month before.
So, I'm stuck on this train with no way to tell Dad that I'm getting off at a different station cause this train doesn't stop at the usual one. This is one of the many reasons I hate cell phones. Not only will the LIE to you and strand you on a train, but they also mean that there are no pay phones left. Practically anywhere. Which is REALLY BAD for some people, like my dad, who doesn't own a cell phone.
So, I went to the conductor, and he told me that conductors are forbidden from carrying cell phones.
Ok. This is getting bad.
So, feeling pretty weird, I finally get the courage to go to the only other person in my car. I ask him if I can use his cell phone. It's one of those iphone things (I can't tell the difference) and he was using it to connect to the internet, but he got off the internet and let me call my dad to tell him where I was.
THAAAANNNNKKK YOOUUUUUU.
My point is, be nice to people. You might get some desperate person like me who's going to be stranded at a train station for who knows how long.
And not only that. Today we had a "field trip" for one of my classes. As we were carpooling home, we come across an accident that had happened obviously only seconds before. This woman was facing the wrong way on the highway, and the entire front bumper of her car was on the road. Her air bag was out, and smoking (apparently air bags smoke).
Our carpool driver pulled over and we helped her out of the car. She was OK, but shaking badly, and had a very small cut on her arm. One of the guys I was with called 911 and we and another lady waited with her. The police didn't take too long to show up. They said "thanks for waiting, but you should go now."
So, yeah. But seriously. If you got in an accident on the freeway, wouldn't you be freaked out? I know I'd be TERRIFIED. And I'd probably appreciate the company of others who wanted to help, even if it was only supplying a few napkins for her cut arm and calling 911.