Star in a Stunt
On camera, in the action. We roll, you shine.
Curious who my boss really is? →
Star in a Stunt
On camera, in the action. We roll, you shine.
Curious who my boss really is? →
I tried. It didn't take. Some of these people work right next to me. Some have never met me. Most would be doing the work whether I showed up or not — and that, honestly, is the best evidence I have that any of this is real.
Let me introduce her properly, because nothing here works without her. Gloria is the Foundation's voice and mine. She runs the calendar. She schedules the Guards. She takes your Restoration confirmations. She recorded the audio tour because they wouldn't let me near the microphone. And — I'll be honest, because I'm secure — she reads everything on this website before it goes out. Including this.
She is, as far as I can tell, the person the civilization actually trusts. I'm the cape. She's the wheel. If you only ever talk to one person in this whole operation, it'll be her, and you'll be better for it.
"He thinks he runs the website. It's good for him. He's a wonderful lobby." — G.
"Everyone ends up asking for Gloria. I've made my peace with being the answer." — G.
"I keep the calendar. The calendar keeps everything else." — G.
Permanently unimpressed. The official approval rating system. Loves: the wood-burning stove, being carried over a shoulder, eviscerating catnip toys. Does not love: costumes, direction, or performing on cue. I introduced him to the suit once. He left the room. We're calling it a soft yes.
And yet. Somewhere along the way he accepted a cape of his own — the yellow "Kindness Is Contagious" one — and now he wears it however he pleases. As a cape when he's feeling official. As a scarf when he's not. As a blanket when he's decided the day is over. I did not give him permission for any of this. He did not ask. That's the most Nugget thing about him.
left to right: in full cape, holding the room · cape reassigned to blanket duty, day declared over · breakfast with the boss (A-OK Man Pops — "Kindness Is Power") · eviscerating the AOK Man toy (now for sale) · routine wagon inspection · his post by the wood-burning stove, which he loves more than me
Against my better judgment, Nugget has been given a column. He dictates; a volunteer transcribes; I am not allowed to edit. He says it's about kindness. It is mostly about me failing at kindness. For the record, the blog was not my decision — who needs a cat's insight on my kindness? — but the civilization insisted, because (and I quote them) animals are kindness without judgment or distraction, and people remember a good animal story longer than a good human one. Fine. They're not wrong. He's got ten entries up now, plus the Pet Wall, where you can add your own animal's story.
Here's the strange part. I have never gotten a single one of their names. I don't know when they'll show up. Gloria knows more about them than I do — not because the civilization briefs me, but because she pays attention and I'm frankly too busy being the face of all this. And yet — they are the most important people in the whole operation, and I'll say that loudly and often, even though they will never acknowledge that I said it. Silent since 1987.
Hire a Guard · ☎ 1-844-KIND-111 ask for Gloria · leave a message · she's great — it's not cheap. Insuring kindness never is.
Here's the good news: it's a much simpler job than mine. You don't have to perform. You don't have to be charming. You barely have to move. The whole role is presence. If you can stand still, look cool, and make people feel quietly watched-over, you're most of the way there.
The requirements, in full:
That's it. No interview, really — they can't, they don't talk. Apply to be a Guard or call ☎ 1-844-KIND-111, ask for Gloria, and leave a message about the job. (The Guards themselves won't answer — they're on duty, protecting kindness. Gloria handles the hiring.)
And yes — you really can hire them. A Guard will stand watch over whatever you point them at: a stranger finishing lunch on a patio, a Yorkie on her afternoon walk, a toddler building a tower at daycare. They don't order. They don't sit. They don't speak. The thing is simply protected, and the person being protected usually never finds out. That's the service. That's the whole service.
That's their actual motto, printed on their actual banner — a guard, stone-faced, standing watch over a teddy bear. I don't fully understand the operation, but I understand that. The banner's one of the pieces we sell, too.
The Guards run their own outfit out of a quiet 1970s strip mall. They'll have their own site before long — when they do, it'll live right here.
Get the banner →
Answers the phone. Schedules the Guards. Has complaints about the signage. Writes invoices Poppy keeps not sending. Bakes oatmeal raisin most weeks. The Foundation has offered her a column. She is thinking about it.
Runs the whole thing. One office. One whiteboard. One word. Dispatches officers with a look, a nod, a folded note. Will not pay Phyllis in clay.
Patio watch. Canine escort. Playroom post. School-lunch detail beside Johnny, Tuesdays and Thursdays, six months running. Different scene, same stone face. Nobody asks why.
Black suit always pressed. Sunglasses always on — indoors, outdoors, 7am, midnight. He just appeared one day. Nobody explains it. That is the explanation. His portrait will not be coming. That's how the operation runs.
Here's something that's changed, though. For years it was the black suit for everything — formal wear, every occasion, no exceptions. Times have changed. We've gone a little more informal these days, and I'll tell you the honest reason why: we already scare people. A silent man in a black suit and sunglasses standing ten feet behind me does a lot of work on its own. We don't need to add to it. So now he'll go casual — the black Kindness Guards tee, the yellow hat. Same presence, slightly less funeral. We just want to scare you into being kind. That's the whole threat. That's the whole promise.
Want what he wears? The black "Security" tee and the rest of the uniform are in the shop. Get the gear →
Not everyone wears a cape or a stone face. Some of them just quietly keep the whole thing from falling apart. Most of them are better at this than I am. I've made peace with that. (See my note on the word "I.")
The Kindness Lawyer. There is a lawyer. The lawyer handles the oaths, the twenty-page NDA, the "is this legal" questions (it's always legal, per the ancient cookbook). Speaks rarely, in a low voice, in a dialect of pure legal that I do not follow. Dark suit. Darker briefcase. Here's all you need to know: I would not want to be in court with our Kindness Lawyer. The moment the judge asks "but were you being kind?" — it's all over. I just nod and sign. You should probably do the same.
Hemingway. The tailor. Keeps the Formal Wear fitting (a losing battle — it's tight, it's supposed to be tight, we've discussed it). Hems the capes so the front edge sits shorter than the back and doesn't flap forward when I run. Strong opinions about thread. Named, as far as I can tell, for the hemming. Or the writer. Won't say. Very tight-lipped. Fitting, for a man who works in tight things.
Hal Digi. Anything past a flip phone, I hand to him. The website, the phone system, the "cloud" (still unclear). Funny story — he actually applied to be a Kindness Guard, and didn't make it: he refused to carry a flip phone and couldn't work a cassette deck or a rotary phone to save his life. So naturally we put him in charge of technology. He tried to explain the missing-ingredient recovery to me using a computer metaphor and I had to lie down. I trust him completely because I understand him not at all. He is the reason this site exists. I am the reason it has a cape on it.
Vaughn. The intern. Found him the way you find the good ones — he held a door for a stranger and didn't look back to see if anyone noticed. That's the whole interview, really. The rest is paperwork.
Eager, fast, learning the ropes — gift kits, filming, replies, walking the route with me. Gets paid in experience and the occasional Spark, which he insists on logging anonymously, which tells you he already understands the job better than I did at his age. Will one day run something. For now he runs to the car when I forget the backpack, which is often. He has questions about the cape I cannot answer and questions about the civilization I am not cleared to answer. He asks them anyway. Every operation needs a V-Man.
Photos coming as we shoot or sketch them. The roster is bigger than this page.
By Marion Kessler · Staff Reporter
Phyllis: I'll tell you what I know about people, having lived a long time. A man with a cat is a man I can trust. A gold cat named Nugget. How bad can he be? He can't. That's how bad. He can't.
Phyllis's full column ran in The TC Highlighter — the first and only interview the Kindness Guards have ever given. It was almost certainly not approved.
LOCAL BUSINESS · APRIL 2026 · PAGE B3
A visit with the woman at the front desk of the town’s most mysterious business.
Phyllis at her desk Wednesday afternoon. “We’re good people here,” she says.
The sign on the window says NOW HIRING. The woman inside says the sign is embarrassing.
“I have been harping on Poppy for weeks,” says Phyllis, who answers the phone at Kindness Guards, a security firm tucked between a Metro by T-Mobile and a nail salon on the boulevard. “Those awful cardboard signs. On a security firm. I said to him — Poppy, if a serious client drives by, they’re going to think we’re a tax preparer.”
Poppy, she clarifies, is her boss. She has worked for him for “a long time now.” She will not say his real name. She will not say how long is long. She will, however, offer a cookie from a Christmas tin on the counter, which the reporter accepts.
This is the first and only interview Kindness Guards has ever given. It was almost certainly not approved.
“I have been harping on Poppy for weeks. Those awful cardboard signs. On a security firm.”
Kindness Guards is the kind of business that most people drive past without noticing. This reporter, admittedly, had done so for years. But a recent jump in signage — the NEWLY REMODELED and NOW HIRING placards that Phyllis finds so objectionable — finally prompted a closer look. What exactly does a security firm called Kindness Guards protect?
The short answer, according to Phyllis, is “acts.”
The long answer is harder to pin down.
Phyllis’s desk is the kind of workstation that tells you everything about the decade she learned to type in. A beige AT&T touch-tone telephone with a curly cord. A Rolodex she actively uses. A candy dish with ribbon candy that she acknowledges “nobody really eats.” A framed photo of a black cat whose status she declines to clarify. A coffee mug that reads WORLD’S OKAYEST RECEPTIONIST — a gift, she says, from one of the Guards, though she cannot remember which.
Also on the desk: a small ancient-looking clay tablet with faint markings carved into it, sitting casually next to the stapler.
When asked about the tablet, Phyllis looks at it as if noticing it for the first time.
This is where the interview turned strange.
According to Phyllis, the clay tablet on her desk is part of what she calls “the kindness economy.” She does not claim to fully understand it.
Phyllis says she became concerned enough about the tablets at one point to confront her boss directly.
She adds, almost as an afterthought: “I did hear a rumor somebody down at Premier Bank actually cashed one of these for real. Walked right in with a clay Spark and walked out with — well, I don’t know how much a Spark is worth, honestly. I’m keeping mine just in case.”
The tablets, Phyllis explains, come from something called “the vault.” When pressed on what the vault is, she takes off her glasses and thinks about it for a long moment.
When asked who “they” are, Phyllis says: “I don’t know, honey. I really don’t. I’ve never met her. I’m sorry — I mean him. I’m sorry, them. I truly don’t know. Poppy has never said. I don’t ask.”
This reporter did not press.
Kindness Guards is, according to Phyllis, in a period of growth. The firm has recently signed a long-term contract with something called the AOK World Foundation — a Wyoming-based nonprofit that Phyllis describes only as “the people who handle all of that” — and the workload has increased noticeably.
Throughout the interview, several Guards passed through the reception area — all in matching black suits, black ties, and black sunglasses. None spoke. One briefly paused at the cookie tin, took a cookie, and continued on his way. Phyllis did not acknowledge him. He did not acknowledge her. This appeared to be routine.
Phyllis mentioned, toward the end of the conversation, that she was not personally involved in the Foundation contract negotiations.
She paused, then added, with a slight edge in her voice:
The Kahuna was not available for comment.
As the interview drew on, this reporter noticed a small collection of framed photographs mounted on the wall behind Phyllis’s desk. Three of them appeared to be candid field shots — a small boy on a playground bench, an elderly woman in a dining hall wheelchair, a suburban sidewalk featuring a small dog on a leash accompanied by what looked like a man in a black suit and sunglasses. None of them were captioned.
When asked what the photos depicted, Phyllis lit up.
She stood, walked to the wall, and began pointing.
She returned to her chair. Caught her breath. Took a sip of coffee.
She looked down at her Rolodex, then up again with a small laugh.
She shook her head, smiling.
She paused.
A small pause. She adjusted her glasses.
She cleared her throat and returned to her Rolodex. Then, almost immediately, looked up again.
She gestured to the framed photo on the edge of her desk — a sleek black cat, imperious, staring directly at the camera with unmistakable judgment.
She looked back at the reporter.
She nodded once, firmly.
She picked up her coffee, seemed to remember it was cold, and put it down again.
She took a sip of coffee, forgetting again that it was cold.
A pause.
Near the end of the interview, Phyllis mentioned, almost shyly, that she has been reading what she calls “the constitution” — a document associated with the AOK World Foundation.
Asked why she wanted to, Phyllis paused. She adjusted her glasses. Then she said:
She then answered the phone, which had been ringing for about ten seconds, apologized for the interruption, and spent the next four minutes warmly confirming a Guard deployment with a caller she referred to only as “Mister James.”
As I gathered my notes, Phyllis pressed a small Tupperware container of homemade cookies into my hands and thanked me again for coming.
I mentioned, as I packed up, that the Kindness Gazette — the Foundation’s paper of record — had been asking me about her. They wanted to run a regular column. Something from her desk. They had a title in mind.
A longer pause.
Another pause.
I asked if there was anything else she wanted the readers of The TC Highlighter to know about Kindness Guards.
She thought about it for a moment.
Kindness Guards is located on the boulevard, between a Metro by T-Mobile and Magic Nails. Their website, according to Phyllis, is “the one with our name on it — I’ve looked at it once, it’s a little dark, but it’s there.”
The signs, as of press time, remain in the window.
column runs in the Kindness Gazette · Phyllis is still thinking about the next one