(WSVN) - A waitress in Washington, D.C. says she received a generous tip and heartwarming note that crossed party lines on inauguration day.
Dr. Jason White, a dentist from Texas, visited the nation’s capital for President Donald Trump’s inauguration, Fox 5 reports. Before heading to the airport, White and his friends stopped at a local eatery called Busboys & Poets, known for it’s “liberal” atmosphere.
“We really hit it off well,” White said of his waitress, Rosalynd Harris. “I know I had a perception of the place where I felt uncomfortable, and she had a perception that she was about to serve Trump supporters, and we’re just in the same boat together.”
Harris said White and his friends stood out in the restaurant.
“I could tell they were from the south because they had their cowboy hats on, and I was like, ‘Oh, you’re not from the city,'” Harris said.
Both Harris and the restaurant left an impression on White, who wrote a note on the check, saying, “We may come from different cultures, and we may disagree on certain issues, but if everyone would share their smile and kindness like your beautiful smile, our country will come together as one people, not race, not gender, just American. God bless.”
White left the note at the table with a $450 tip for the $72 bill. The move caught Harris by surprise.
“The simple fact that he didn’t want to create a scene, but just wanted to let me know that this was a great experience and this is what he hopes for people in general, it was very touching,” she said to Fox 5. “It’s really amazing and it makes me want to go about my interactions with that kind of energy more often.”
For his part, White said his act of kindness wasn’t planned, but just part of experience of his trip.
“The entire weekend was overwhelming for me,” he said. “On Friday for me, it was just a big patriotic American experience. On Saturday, for someone like myself that lives out here in west Texas where we really don’t see the extreme disagreements as much, we respect each other so much, and I was just looking for a really cool place to eat lunch before we took off to Reagan National [Airport] to fly home. So we ended up at Busboys and Poets, which was an unbelievable place.”
White said he prefers to focus on the “little things,” regardless of politics.
“It’s about the person sitting next to you at the library and how you treat them, and you don’t look at them with a preconceived notion of who they may be or what you think they are. Because you don’t know either way,” White said to WUSA. “It’s really our duty to make America great ourselves, not one person, but ourselves, and that’s by respecting and loving one another no matter how much we disagree with them.”
Harris said she plans to use the money to pay off some bills, and hopes to thank White for his kindness.
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