We didn’t have adequate milk supply at the cottage, so We visited one of the Tim Horton franchises in Lachute on Saturday so Sharon could have a latté. I placed the order via the intercom and as I approached the window of the drive-thru with five bucks in hand the Tim’s worker on duty handed me the coffee and said “la madame en avant à déjà payer ton café”! Sharon insisted I give the cashier the 5$ as a tip, which the lady tried to refuse, but ultimately accepted. Win/win, right?

Yesterday we had to return to Lachute to get a baking thermometer and my sister asked if we could pick up 2 dark double doubles for her and my bro-in-law. We saw that there was a huge lineup at the same drive through, so I said “f…. it” and we drove past and up the hill to Canadian Tire for the thermometer. There was another Tim’s there, so I drove in to the parking lot, but the lineup was very long, so I thought maybe going inside and ordering would be faster. The lineup was such that I didn’t even get inside, and in the five minutes I stood there not budging, no one came out either. Again I aborted and thought we’ll just forget about the coffees. As we retraced our trip back into the centre of town, Sharon saw that the lineup there had shrunk to only a few cars. I turned in and ordered three drinks and got to the cash where the same lady served me and said “bon appetite” in the way that some English people mangle the french language on purpose(like merci buckets) and then repeated what had happened the day before: “La madame en avant à déjà payer” only this time she closed her window as fast as my dropping jaw so I couldn’t pay her a tip. It was completely surreal. How can this rarity occur twice in a row? On the way back to the cottage Sharon and I discussed the absurdity of it all and posited several theories about what may have happened and why. I think this may be how conspiracy theories get invented. Was it a Thanksgiving thing? Did she recognize my voice and decide to repay the tip from the previous day? Was it a Tim Horton Illuminati plot that tracks Anglos in green jeeps? Maybe it was a special effort by Tim’s to make people more generous and sell more coffee, or maybe it is just that some people are just kind and enjoy surprising others. It was fun. We were surprised and thankful and it put smiles on our faces.