SUMMERSIDE, P.E.I. — When Justin Doiron posted online an ad looking for a motorcycle, never in his wildest dreams did he imagine to be gifted one.
“I was just looking for a motorcycle that I could putt around over the summer. I even quoted a price in the ad that I was willing to pay up to $500,” said Doiron, who admitted he had a small motorcycle for three years before he ‘outgrew’ it at the end of the summer and was in search of an upgrade.
The very next day after his ad was posted on Kijiji, Robert Durber responded from New Minas, N.S.
“We started exchanging emails over our enthusiasm for motorcycles,” said Doiron, who is also a Summerside city councillor. “Robert asked if I was the kind of guy that could take care of his bike – put it inside over winter, keep it clean, and so on. His question caught me off guard, but after I realized this must be very valuable to him.”
Doiron decided to call and ask the question – how much for the motorcycle?
The response came as a complete surprise.
In exchange for a 2007 Honda Shadow Spirit 750, which had only racked up 5,000-kilometres over the years, Durber wanted the cat litter box that Doiron had also posted online months ago.
“I wanted to make sure he was the right person – a family man – that puts others above himself,” explained Durber, who had found the second ‘litter box’ ad posted by Doiron after deeper investigation.
Durber admitted it was the first time he had visited the website Kijiji, and he had already searched the wanted list for the right person in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, before turning his eye to P.E.I.
“Justin’s ad was the first to come up and it looked promising. After talking with him, I knew he was meant to have the motorcycle,” he said.
Doiron couldn’t believe someone wanted to trade a practically new motorcycle in return for a cat litter box, but there was just one problem: He had sold the box and forgotten to delete the ad.
“I initially posted the litter box online after my cat, Fenway, went missing on Christmas Eve. One day turned into weeks, and then a month.
“We thought Fenway was dead,” he said. “Then we heard about two rescue cats found in a ditch and decided we would give them a second chance, a good home.”
And then out of the blue, Fenway, who after being gone for so long and assumed to have died, returned. Now with three cats, a bigger litter box was needed.
Doiron’s kindness to the abandoned kittens was about to be returned in the form of good karma.
He decided to confess that he no longer had the litter box. But Durber was downsizing and had already decided that when he met the right person – he would not tell them at first that – he was going to give the motorcycle away for free.
“I thought he was joking,” said Doiron, “Until I went to Nova Scotia with a truck and trailer to pick it up.”
The motorcycle was in immaculate condition, and the act of kindness has come back full circle.
Doiron said he is committed to buying the person behind him in the Tim Hortons drive-thru a coffee to pay it forward.
“It will take a few decades to pay off a motorcycle (with a cup of coffee), but I want to do it,” he said.
Durber responded that life should to be that way – kind.
“The whole message and purpose of this is to pass the kindness along.”
