Welcome to the Moth Podcast. I'm Michelle Jalowski, your host for this episode.

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about what we owe each other. What our responsibilities are,

as strangers, as friends, as family members, as fellow human beings. What the balance is between

looking out for yourself and taking care of everyone else.

I like to think that it's everyone's responsibility to give kindness and care and that they're owed the same in return.

On this episode, we'll have two stories, along with a pitch from our pitch line, about that very topic,

giving and receiving kindness.

First up is Matthew Dix, who told this at one of our open mic story slams in Boston.

Here's Matthew, live at the month.

I'm sitting in the break room of a McDonald's restaurant in Milford, Massachusetts.

I'm eating an egg McMuffin and I am not happy.

It is the spring of 1987. I'm 16 years old and it's not the egg McMuffin that's causing me

to be unhappy because an egg McMuffin is the most guaranteed source of joy in my entire day.

But not on this day. I'm upset because I'm about to meet my mortal enemy for the first time, and I know it's not going to go well.

I've been working at this restaurant for two months now.

I actually live three towns away in Blackstone, Massachusetts, but I found out that this place pays $4.65 an hour,

and that's 20 cents more than the White hen pantry, five minutes from my house.

And I figured, even though it's a 30-minute drive, the 20 cents will absolutely make up for the time and the gas, which it does not.

But it changes my life in a really significant way, because when I arrive here, I discover the joy of a clean slate.

I'm growing up in a tiny town, 82 kids are in my class, so the same 82 kids I knew in kindergarten, and they remember everything. And so when you

want to be something different or you decide you could be something better, no one lets you

because they remember everything. They still talk about the time in sixth grade when I exposed myself to class

...