This was a long while ago - 2002. I had moved to Los Angeles for graduate school from the UK and after the first few months I'd become brave (foolish) enough driving around to buy my own car, a very beaten up Honda hatchback with a zillion miles on it.
One afternoon, driving back from my college I got lost which was still a common occurrence at that point but I ended up in a pretty scary neighbourhood (gangs) and my car decided to breakdown. Of course. This was back when cell phones were expensive and I had no money for that kind of extravangance, I also had no money for a repair service so I sat in my car trying not to cry, wondering how scared I should be given the neighbourhood.
Suddenly there was a tap on my car window and an oldish, heavily tattoed, skinny, scruffy man asked if I was okay and did I need help with my car. Logically I knew I should say no thanks and hope he would go away so I could figure out what to do myself - except I had no fucking clue what to actually do. So I said yes thank you, got out my car and the man popped the hood and got to work on the engine. Hearing my accent he talked about his time in the US army based in Germany so we chatted about the autobahn! He kept working on it for nearly two hours, under a hot sun and got my car working again.
This somewhat scary looking man (who 100% had seen jail time based on his self-made body art) took two hours out of his life helping me even though I had no money to pay him, he was a total gentleman. He also gave me directions to get back to where I needed to go and warned me that 'this wasn't a good neighbourhood Miss, so try not to get lost here next time!'
It was a very strange experience and even though I was deeply grateful to this man he was the most intimidating person I'd ever met in my sheltered 22 years of life. The kindness of strangers is a remarkable thing.