A hilarious video of a mom went viral, where she hugged a stranger in a gas station parking lot after thinking that he was doing a kind act.
This video even landed her on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.
Mary Katherine Backstrom, 35, from Fort Myers, Florida got the attention on Facebook, after her awkward encounter with a stranger in a Wawa parking lot. The hilarious video has been viewed over 80 million times.
The mom explained she was full of holiday spirit on that day and decided to purchase another woman’s ginger ale at the gas station. She saw a man who was cleaning her windshield in the parking lot and thought that he was also doing a similar act of kindness.
Backstrom explained that she was reading an article about ‘how everybody’s so generous over the holidays and it makes everything so magical.’
She went inside a Wawa convenience store, saw the woman behind her in line who was purchasing just ginger ale. Backstrom decided, to treat the woman to the drink.
‘It was a precious moment,’ Backstrom said about purchasing the beverage for the stranger.
‘So I walk outside and I’m still in the mindset that the holidays are so magical.’
She continued: ‘I see this man. He’s cleaning my windshield. And I’m convinced this is the Christmas magic. And so I’m like, “Oh gosh, I just love this time of year, you know?”‘
Backstrom goes to the man to thank him for his kind gesture on his part for washing her windshield.
‘So I walk up to this man, and I am like, “This is my favorite part of humanity. I love Christmas so much. Thank you for doin’ this!” And I give him a hug,’ she detailed.
Backstrom never thought about what happened next. She was laughing too hard, so It takes the woman several moments to complete the story for viewers.
‘It wasn’t my car,’ she said while laughing. ‘He was parked directly in front of me, and he was cleaning his own windshield. He didn’t know why I was hugging him. I think he thought I was insane.’
Backstrom just walked away without any explanation, and she then drove her car to a separate parking spot so she could film her confessional video away from the stranger.
She shared the moment on Facebook, it quickly went viral and watched 80 million times, including by Ellen DeGeneres.
‘You’ve done so many other things,’ DeGeneres said. ‘So even though you don’t have a lot of money, whenever you have any extra money, you find a way to pay it forward. That’s amazing.’
Backstrom was then gifted $20,000 to do with whatever she likes. It was the real ‘Christmas magic’ the woman was looking for this season.
When speaking with News-Press about appearing on The Ellen Show, Backstrom confessed to not memorizing the entire moment.
‘You know, I kind of blacked out, to be honest,’ she said. ‘There were a lot of laughs and giggles and me telling her I loved her a lot. It’s something I’ll never forget. She’s always been one of my heroes.’
She and her husband want to use this money to pay off their student loans. They also want to use to do ‘random acts of kindness’ for people in their area.
‘We feel like it’s this magic pot of money,’ she said, ‘and we’ve got to do something special with it. We just haven’t figured out what yet.’
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