At the roadside truck stop, it was a normal afternoon. People stopped to gas and get something to eat. One of the customers was an old man who was eating pie and milk by himself at a corner table. The rough-looking bikers who walked in made a big impression with their loud laughing and rowdy behavior. In stark comparison, he was calm and collected.
The bikers, who looked like they were looking for trouble, went after the old man. One of them stuck a lit cigarette into the man’s pie, and another spat into his milk glass. The third biker turned the man’s plate over, spilling his food all over the ground. The old man stayed quiet the whole time, and his face couldn’t be read.
The bikers laughed out loud and gave each other high-fives because they thought they were done with their bad behavior. But their happiness didn’t last long. A calm old man took a few bills from his pocket and put them on the table as he stood up to leave. A smile came across the waitress’s face as she wiped down the bar. She had been watching the whole thing.
Still cocky, one of the bikers looked at the waitress with a sneer and said, “Not much of a man, was he?” The waitress, though, got the last laugh. She responded with a nod toward the window, “Not much of a truck driver either.” The bikers had parked their bikes outside, but now the old man’s big rig had smashed them into a bunch of jumbled metal and rubber.
The bikes were shocked and embarrassed, and the confidence they had shown earlier was replaced with anger and shock. On the other hand, the old man had made his point in the strongest way possible. He got even and returned balance to the situation without saying a word of insult or raising his voice.
As the old man’s payback story spread, it was used as an example of how important it is not to judge people by their looks. The man who seemed quiet and modest turned out to be a powerful force, and his deeds spoke louder than his words. The lesson was clear: respecting others is always the right thing to do, and not valuing them can lead to bad things.
