‘Faith in Humanity Restored’: Man Discreetly Pays Tab for Woman Who Was ‘Diagnosed’

A waitress in Cambridge was overwhelmed with emotion this week when one of her customers decided to pay the tab for someone sitting nearby, after he apparently overhead news that they had just been “diagnosed.”

Nikki Pirog, who works at Daedalus in Harvard Square, said she combined the check of a mother and daughter with one of her other customers, after the man dropped a note before leaving the restaurant.

The note read:

Photo via Reddit.com

After her shift, floored by the kindness of a stranger, Pirog posted the note on Reddit, in the pictures section of the community website, and said her “faith in humanity” was restored.

The letter quickly went viral, with hundreds of comments—and similar stories—getting added to the post on the site. CNN caught up with Pirog, and got the details on what happened during the shift: “I combined the two checks, and he paid for both,” Pirog told CNN. “Neither of us really spoke of what took place, as he had obviously not wanted to make a big deal out of it.” Pirog’s feel-good experience also got picked up by several other national media outlets.

Pirog said that the man wrote her an additional note, thanking her for helping out, before he left the restaurant. “I waited until the guy left and told them he had taken care of their check, and that he said best wishes, which was what he said to do on the note he wrote me on his second bill. The mother cried even harder [and] I almost lost it,” she said.

Boston reached out to Pirog, and confirmed that it was her note.