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Perfect Strangers

New Zealand Listener

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October 6 - 12 2018

Its heart-warming to see strangers of different races get along, even in Trumps America.

- Joanne Black

Perfect Strangers

Walking home in torrential rain last week, I saw a couple of women, both white and middle-aged, standing on the footpath talking to two young men who were lying partially under a parked car. Assuming they were fixing a flat tyre, I stopped to ask if everything was okay.

It turned out that one of the women had seen four kittens on the footpath. As she approached, they had run under a couple of parked cars. The two men from a US Postal Service delivery truck had become involved and when I arrived, one of them, who was African American, was lying in the gutter groping under the wheel well of one of the cars while the other guy, who was Latino and sported DIY tattoos, was lying in front of the car, reaching under the bumper. They were saturated. I was no use at all, except that I had an umbrella.

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