Generous Customer Gives Waitress $500 Tip To Help Fix Her Broken Hearing Aid

Surprising acts of generous gratuity always make us smile, and one customer's kindly gesture toward his hearing-impaired waitress is no exception.

Keri Marie Carlson is a waitress at GW Carson's in Branford, Connecticut, where she always works hard to make diners' experiences special. But this has been a bit tough lately as the hearing-impaired woman has been dealing with a broken hearing aid. Last week, Carlson was moved to tears when a customer (who wished to remain anonymous) offered her $500 to repair her hearing aids.

"I didn't say I needed the money or anything," Carlson told ABC station WTNH. "He just came in the back and said I'm not going to take no for an answer and I can't let you go home like this and I tried to give him the money back, but he was like — no — you deserve this."

She said that she was "in shock" after the huge gesture and cried in the arms of the customer and his wife.

As an ode to the kind gesture, Carlson's boss Jim Kirtopoulos, who owns GW Carson's, said that he would donate partial proceeds of the restaurant's T-shirt sales to the American Society for Deaf Children.