After posting several AOKs with my handy iPhone app, I realized that these AOKs, these brief glimpses into each other’s daily lives, serve the same function as some of the best fiction: they show us how similar we are, how our day-to-day is full of opportunities to put a smile on someone’s face, and help us to remember that, as Oprah preached for the last time on Wednesday, not a’one of us is ever alone. Sappy, yes. But gosh, AOKs are great, and so sometimes I must wax poetic. Oprah’s great, too. But alas, all good things…In keeping with the brevity of most AOK acts and observations such as, “Gave my last onion to my flatmate who needed it for his recipe,” and “Invited a stranger to join me for lunch,” you can imagine my delight when I happened upon a little book called Hint Fiction: An Anthology of Stories in 25 Words or Fewer. Edited by Robert Swartwood, this exercise in brevity was undertaken by literary luminaries and their aspiring counterparts. The story I opened to that made me want to own this little gem? Written by Jess Row, entitled “A Quiet American:”

       He realized, taking a long swig from his beer, that no one had told

him whether swallowing the octopus was guaranteed to kill it.

Awesome. And an instant reminder that I may still have watermelon seeds growing in my stomach from swallowing them 15 years ago. Yikes. Even more awesome? That AOK about inviting a stranger to lunch told a whole tale in just 8 words, and it’s not even fiction.

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The Missed Connections section on Craigslist never fails to fascinate, entertain, or amaze (let’s just say some lack, um, subtlety). For the uninitiated, Missed Connections is a portion of Craigslist where people post messages to memorable strangers they have no other way of getting in contact with.These Missed Connections are especially fun when they hit close to home, so to speak, and you realize they’re happening in places you recognize and even frequent. Suddenly, there’s the chance that someone has taken notice of you. A friend and frequent browser of the MC section was completing her usual morning Coffee Bean run when she spilled her entire soy latte all over the coffee bar. Tiny but full of fury, this friend unleashed a few expletives. She drew enough attention to find a reference to herself on the LA Missed Connections page that afternoon: “M4W: You are a small, angry, brunette…”For some, these little notes conjure more than just images of familiar haunts. Check out the artist Sophie Blackall’s lovely illustrations, inspired by some of her favorite Missed Connections posts.We here at AOK often refer back to this idea of “missed connections,” not only because the AOK concept involves reaching out in small ways to people you don’t know, but also because we want to turn those missed connections into made connections. When a moment to help someone out presents itself, even if its just offering a few pleasant words, that AOK encouragement enters your mind. The AOK community will be there to celebrate you when you succeed, and it will be there to encourage you when you fail. Because there’s always more chances to connect.

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From AOK team member Lynn, an attempted AOK (Editorial Note: Inspired by this act of leaving extra time in the meter for the next person, I added an hour to my meter on San Vicente before I drove off. AOK relay?)I pull up to the parking meter, and with kindness overflowing, I don’t just take a nickel out to put in the meter while I run for coffee, I take a WHOLE QUARTER!!! I snap a picture, to document my overwhelmingly kind act, and lo and behold, the damn meter is BROKEN. Mission NOT accomplished, this was an AOK No-Go.

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From our AOK team member, Lynn:Parking at Target on the weekend usually sucks, you’re on guard for all sorts of rotten driving behavior. Today, I was more than pleasantly surprised when a young woman and her son went towards their car, and it was the son who made eye contact and a gesture to alert me that this parking spot was soon going to be for me. What really struck is the age of the boy, maybe 7 or 8, and how proud he was to provide me this gift and exchange this silent pleasantry…well beyond his years….it was as if he’d been watching his mom for years do the same, and seeing how happy it made people, thought he’d give it try. I smiled and waved big time, and I could tell he thought it was cool to bond, if only for a moment, with a perfect stranger, on this nice gesture. AOK Observed!A few moments later, the boy gets out of his car and walks towards mine. For the life of me I can’t think of any reason this would need to occur…and I CONFESS that I was a little apprehensive…what could this boy want from me…was there any reason I should go back to my previous on guard position? Geez I hoped not…we’d just had such a perfect AOK moment! I rolled down my window…and the sweet little guy just wanted to tell me that ‘his mom was going to take a little while longer…she had to do something in the car’….WHAT…getting out of your car to tell me this…your AMAZING kid (I thought in my head)! He just didn’t want me to have to wait…he smiled..happy to impart this bit of important information…and boy did I smile back. The only thing I wish I could have taken back was my minor moment of apprehension…completely washed away as this kid melted my heart and made my day!

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At a local watering hole on Friday night, a group of revelers had an extra shot when they ordered a round and offered it to the table behind them. The recipient of said shot was grateful and thanked the group heartily when he left.

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Celebrating my father in-laws 70th birthday with the entire family at a luxurious hotel in Santa Barbara this weekend. After treating myself to a day at the spa….message, whirlpool, steam room…wrapping up with a nice long shower …. I noticed a glob of gross hair at the bottom of the drain. My ‘Confession’ is that normally I probably would have left this nasty business right where it was….or not even noticed it for that matter (or not wanting to notice it) with a mindset that ‘cleanup’ was part of the spa experience…where you walk around on a cloud and magical fairies (aka spa staff) take care of everything for you. Because I’m living the AOK life these days, I mustered my courage (very nasty business, remember) and pulled out a lovely mix of mine and past cloud floating ladies hair out of the spa drain.My ‘Act’ was recognizing that NO ONE wants to pickup someone else’s hair out of the drain…my husband can testify to this…twice. Even if a person’s job is to pickup after people they STILL don’t want to pick up hair out of a drain; they just do it because they have to. As I walked from shower to garbage with said glob of hair, I couldn’t help but notice a few spa ladies glancing my way. I like to believe they were impressed with my diligence and hopefully understood the kindness gesture I was making towards the spa staff, which would encourage them to do the same one day. Truth is, maybe they already do this sort of thing naturally, and I’m the lazy bum, who knows, but at least one person was changed for the better today. ME.

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Hey guys, I’m here at Jiffy Lube and a guy was paying for the oil change with cash but they didn’t have sufficient change. A woman who was waiting alongside me said ‘I have change’ and she proceeds to get up and make change.The customer receiving change and the woman had a nice little banter and a smile about how she went to the casino last night ‘justifying’ why she had the various denominations.It was a subtle exchange, but I chuckled as she made her comment and it injected some levity into the otherwise boring experience of waiting for my car to be serviced.

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