Last night I got, perhaps, the biggest compliment of my life...

My friend Andy called from Florida as he was driving home from work. Andy works for the local electric authority in Jacksonville and, dare I say, ten years ago, he was studying to take his supervisors test in order to move into a much more lucrative position.

Part of the test involved doing simple mathematics but as math isn't Andy's forte, his boyfriend (and now long term partner) and one of my former teacher's, David, had a bit too much wine and wound up falling asleep on the sofa, much to Andy's dismay. I happend to drop by that night as David was drifting off and volunteered to help Andy through some of the more basic concepts since it was fresher in my mind since I was just out of college than it was in his...

Well, Andy passed the test and was thinking back on that night on his ride home when he picked up his cell phone and called me.

That one small action of helping a friend had a profound effect on his life. Although he credits my help with getting him through the test, I refuse to take all of the credit. I just did what any friend would do in that situation -- help out. I definitely wasn't going to leave him hanging there...

I guess, for me at least, it was just a reminder that sometimes what we consider to be small, meaningless actions can have profound reactions on the rest of someone's life.