Mom's Surprise Response to Insulters Goes Viral

You've probably heard stories about customers buying coffee for those in line behind them, but this particular "going viral" tale has a twist. After Michigan's Dianne Hoffmeyer ordered doughnuts in a Tim Horton's coffee shop, she overheard the two women behind her snarking about her weight and her looks. Her response? She paid for their coffee—because she didn't want to snarl back and set a bad example for her 2-year-old daughter, reports the Times Herald. Hoffmeyer posted about the experience on Facebook; the next day, her email account froze as more than 1 million notifications and messages from well-wishers poured in.

“One positive action in a negative moment has caused a tsunami of friendship for me with moms that are going through the same thing,” says the 41-year-old. The back story: Those "Timbits" doughnuts were a quick treat for her daughter, who'd been up all night teething, and Hoffmeyer herself has dropped 177 pounds since her daughter's birth. Scripps has the full Facebook post, which begins, "To the 2 mean bitter ladies that were standing in line at Tim Hortons in Fort Gratiot behind me. I could hear you. I could hear the hurtful things you said about me. ... You both made me cry." (More uplifting news stories.)