Some people say "no good deed goes unpunished." I never subscribed to that armchair philosophy even though I had and saw many good deeds backfire. I must admit, though, that the "unpunished" saying did make me a little apprehensive that my most elaborate good deed might boomerang; but it didn't stop me.
I'm a 52 year old guy with keen business acumen but poor social skills with women. I did get married when in my twenties to a bohemian woman that my friends considered a poor match. I now have two grown sons that live in cities far away, and my gypsy wife simply "took off" about ten years ago when my sons were still teens. I divorced her in absentia.
I've worked hard enough, and have been lucky enough, to have made lots of money but that is also sometimes a problem. Even though I live fairly modestly (though not as modestly as my idol, Warren Buffet) everyone in the medium-size city I live in considers me the richest dude around. While many women my age, and even in their late thirties, seem interested in me I always wonder if it is me or my money. I don't have the intuition or social skills to be sure so I've had very few sexual encounters since my wife left ten years ago.
I have great relationships with my sons even though they live far away. I brought them up to be independent and I really succeeded. They don't let me help them out monetarily, although they value my counsel on all aspects of life. I am very reluctant to give advice when it comes to romance, however, since I have no confidence in that area. We talk and email at least every other day.
A number of my sons' best friends during high school still live in my city, including Ray and Carmen. I've known them since they were in their early teens and always liked them. Ray and my oldest son were the starting guards on the high school basketball team, and Carmen was an All-Conference soccer player and hung out with my soccer-playing younger son and his friends. Ray and Carmen were the only two teenagers who, individually and independently, actually came to my door and offered their encouragement when my wife left even though they were only 16 and 17 at the time.
I had always hoped that one of my sons would marry Carmen. She was the most unassuming beautiful young women I had ever seen. In addition to being spectacularly good looking, with a winning personality, she was kind, funny, smart, and a phenomenal athlete. Since marrying one of my sons wasn't to be I was happy to see her and Ray tie the knot. They were a good looking couple who seemed well suited for each other. Ray and Carmen were embarrassed by the wedding present I gave them โ a new car โ and wanted to return it. It required intervention by my sons to talk them into keeping it.
At the relevant time of this story Carmen was 26 and Ray 27 and they had two little kids. Carmen worked in the financial field and Ray in the construction industry. Then the economic downturn hit our city really hard. Ray lost his job first, then Carmen a few months later. Like many young couples they were overextended, but bankruptcy was not really a viable option if Carmen ever wanted to work in the financial field again. By the time I found out about their troubles from my sons they were in awful monetary shape and were shortly going to be evicted from their house.
As I have already hinted at Carmen and Ray were as independent and proud as my sons and I knew that they would never accept "charity" from me, especially after the car incident; but I badly wanted to help. So I came up with a plan which would be hard to execute but that I was highly motivated to pull off.
One of the garden apartment building complexes I owned on the outskirts of the city, called "The Luxor," was managed by my longest-term employee, a legal alien from Italy by the uber-Italian name of "Guido." Guido and his American wife had long wanted to visit his relatives in Italy but never could seem to be able to save enough money to do so; they weren't good at handling the above-market salary I paid him even though they had free rent in one of the apartment units. I was already planning to give him a twentieth-year-as-an-employee gift, like a gold watch or something similar, but now decided to make it a better gift. An all expenses paid two month trip to Italy.
After I told Guido what my gift would be and told him to start planning the trip โ luckily it was over the phone otherwise from his reaction I'm sure he would have kissed me โ I called up Ray and Carmen. Carmen answered.
"Hi Carmen, this is Jeff. I haven't seen you in a couple months. How are the kids doing?"
"Hi, Jeff. Yeah, it's been ages. The kids are fine, though trying to drive their parents nuts."
"Ha, ha. Were you any better?"
"You know I wasn't, Jeff."
"Say, let me get right to the point of my call. I have kind of an emergency. I just found out that the manager of my Luxor apartment complex is going on a two month trip and I need someone to take over. Free rent in a two bedroom apartment is included and I pay above market. Do you know of anyone who you could recommend to do that?"
"Uh, really? When would they have to start?"
"Actually, any time that is convenient for them. I don't mind if they overlap with my manager since they will need to learn the ropes, and they could help out for a few months after he gets back, too, if necessary. Know of someone?"
"Actually Jeff, I might. Let me run it by Ray and get back to you."
"Thanks, you'd really be helping me out."
Not surprisingly, I heard back from Carmen within an hour.
"Hi Jeff, Carmen."
"Wow, that was fast."
"Yeah, there's a reason. Actually, Ray and I have been having a hard time financially recently."
"Really; I'm sorry to hear that."
"Thanks. Well, anyway, Ray and I would actually love to be co-managers ourselves. I think you know that we'd do a good job for you."
"Are you serious? Wow! That would be wonderful, two people who I like and trust handling it. That's far better than I could hope for. Is it convenient for you to meet me tomorrow at The Luxor? You could bring the kids."