My Lemony Drip Drop

I made a realization today. While a woman was showing me the wallet sized pictures of her children I suddenly wondered what pictures I would keep in my wallet.

I don't have any children.

I don't even have pets. 

Then I thought of the most beautiful thing I own.

I promise I'm not materialistic.

I just have yellow fever.

Christmas on a sesame seed bun

I've made friends with the drive-through Wendy's cashier. I went twice this week to get their Dollar Menu Double Stack and Chili and each time was an adventure. Our first encounter went something like this:

At Wendy's intercom
My New Friend: (in a heavy accent) "Hello, and what can I be getting you today?"
Bekah: "Just a second, please."
MNF: "I am sorry but I cannot be giving away time."
Bekah: (silence)...excuse me?
MNF: "You are asking for seconds. It is a joke!
Bekah: (giggles) "Oh, I thought you were mad at me..."
MNF: "Never would I do that! I would give you seconds if I had them, but they are tricky things to find."
Bekah: "True dat."
MNF: "But I will give you a hamburger!"
Bekah: "That's the spirit!"

When I pulled up to the window
MNF: (taking my card) "You will feel better about losing time when you have had some beef, yes?"
Bekah: "Beef pretty much makes me feel better about everything."
MNF: "You love animals?"
Bekah: "...Yes"
MNF: "Do you feel bad eating someone's cow?"
Bekah: (I raised an eyebrow, and then smiled) "I don't discuss profound paradoxes on the first date," I said.

He winked, handed me my double stack, and waved goodbye as I drove away.

When I went for some Dollar Menu Chili on my lunch break today we chit chatted about the weather, my car, and glue-on mustaches. Before I left he gave me two debonair winks. I about melted from his 43 year-old charm. As I was driving away he yelled, "You remember this time for Merry Christmases!"

I couldn't help but whisper Christmases to myself while I drove back to work.

I feel privileged to be friends with someone who celebrates multiple Christmases.

Santa, eat your heart out.

Sleep tight, Oscar

This was my Monday morning:

After turning off my alarm I rolled out of bed, stumbled to the hallway and made my way to our bathroom. My roommate was standing in front of the sink brushing her teeth.
"I'm almost done," she said. She spit, rinsed off her toothbrush and opened the cabinet above the sink. "I just need to put in my contacts."
"You're fine." I leaned against the door frame and covered my mouth as I yawned.
We started to chit chat about our plans for the day when an odd sound came from the living room.
Blub...blub...blub
"What's that?" I turned to look into the kitchen.
"I don't know..." She tilted her head. "It kind of sounds like Oscar,"

(That's what we named our water heater.)

We stood silently for a few seconds listening.
Suddenly, the water in the toilet started to bubble. Huge air pockets exploded from the water's surface every few seconds.
Bloop, bloop, bloop...
"Um..." I scratched my arm and tried not to smile. "Our toilet is burping."
"I'm going to call Kyle," she said.

She went down the hallway to call our landlord and I stepped into the bathroom to get a better look. The toilet would burp about two or three seconds after Oscar The Water Heater. I swear they were communicating. They were talking. I leaned against the wall and wondered what a water heater could possibly have to say to a toilet. 

I felt a little left out.

"It's still doing it, right?" my roommate yelled from her room.
"Yeah," I called back.  I stepped away from the wall and leaned over the toilet bowl to get a closer look.

And then this happened. 

(That's me on the right)

"Gah!"

"What's happening?" My roommate yelled from her room.

Water gushed from the toilet and quickly spread across the floor. Something black and murky started to seep out of the shower drain and fill the bottom of the tub.

"Gah!" I screamed again. "I'm drowning!"

I splashed around like a crazy woman for the first 13 seconds, picking up rugs, moving trashcans, lifting shower curtains. By the 14th second I realized I better do something about the waterfall so I made my way to the toilet, lifted up the tank cover, poked around inside and pulled the first lever I saw. 

Sweet watery peace.

I had one hand in the tank, one holding on to the cupboard above me, one foot on the toilet and the other on the sink. I looked like a moist female Spider-Man. An impressive amount of water slowly settled on the bathroom floor. My roommate stood in the doorway, her hand to her face and her phone to her ear.

"Kyle," she said. "There's a lake in our bathroom."

Needless to say, I didn't get to shower before work that day. Kyle came over a few minutes later, tapped the pipes and poked around the furnace. After an hour he decided we must have had a slight blockage that just passed through on its own.

I think differently. Before I go to bed now I sneak out to the living room, lean up to the utility closet and whisper good night to Oscar. I don't want him to feel neglected. If he's not appeased he might gurgle hostile somethings to the kitchen appliances.

It gives me the willies just thinking about it.   

 

Spitting and Kicking

My favorite game as a little girl was "imaginative exploratory wandering," which really just consists of traipsing about the great outdoors without any particular destination in mind and imagining anything and everything fantastical is happening to you.

(This is me and my little brother playing imaginative exploratory wandering)

When I was nine I would wander to this bridge down my street, sit among the rocks on the curve of the tunnel and watch the fish swim through the reeds below me. One day, two boys from my class at school rode by on their bikes. One of them, Ryan, was on my bus and would sit and tell me stories during indoor recess.

I kind of had a thing for him

"Hey!" he yelled. "What are you doing down there?"
I looked around for a second and considered my options.
"I'm looking for lizards," I yelled back.

Ryan rubbed at a bit of dirt on his knee, looked up at something in the sky, and put his bike down in the grass. His friend shrugged and continued down the road.
Ryan carefully made his way towards me, picked up a rock and threw it into the bushes along the banks of the canal.

"Do you come here a lot?" He asked. 

"Just a couple times."
"What kind of lizards are you looking for?"
"Um," I looked at my hands. "The little green ones."
"Okay." He picked up another rock. "My dad has a bearded dragon, but you can't find them in Michigan cause they're only in pet stores. I know a lot about lizards cause I get the National Geographic. I can probably help you."
We climbed all over the bridge lifting up rocks and peeking into bushes. After about ten minutes Ryan sat back down on the rocks.
"I think we're making too much noise. We're scaring all the lizards away."
We sat watching the water for a few seconds before I remembered something.
"We could look in the woods." I turned and pointed behind me. "My friend, Lauren, showed me a secret path a couple days ago that leads straight to goose-poop island."

(I'm not making this up. It was really called that.)

"A secret path?"
"And it's right at the edge of the thickest part of the woods."
We brushed the dust off our pants and made our way toward the forest. In Michigan, trees grow about as fast as juicy gossip so it was a struggle to make our way along the narrow trail. After about fifteen minutes of stumbling over roots and whacking branches away from our faces we suddenly heard voices.
Ryan grabbed my arm and put his finger to his lips.
"It could be robbers," he whispered.
We stood silently for a moment. We could hear yelling and laughing down the trail, and every few minutes or so we'd be startle by a loud popping sound.

"C'mon," he said. "Let's see how close we can get."

We crept along the path until we could see a clearing in the distance. We hid behind some bushes and peeked through the leaves. About six or seven men were standing in the clearing, aiming guns at beer cans lined up along a fallen tree trunk.
"They're practicing," Ryan whispered. "Probably for their next big job."

The men were young and loud. They'd kick at the trees and punch their friends if they missed their shot.
"Let's head back," Ryan whispered.
I nodded and turned to go when my face bumped into someone's leg. I looked up.
A tall, red-headed man stood in front of us. He was holding a grocery bag in one hand and his hat in the other. We just stared at one another for a while until Ryan suddenly stood up and pointed behind him.
"We were looking for my dad," he said.
The man blinked.
"This is my sister," Ryan said, putting his hand on my shoulder.
I smiled and waved.

The man looked over us towards the clearing.

"Well," Ryan said, "we better go before Mom figures out where we are." He grabbed my sleeve and started walking down the path away from the clearing. "Tell dad we said hi!" he called over his shoulder.
The man watched us for a second, shrugged, and made his way towards the spitting and kicking.

When we couldn't hear their voices anymore we ran as fast as we could through the trees toward the road. Every few seconds or so Ryan would yell, "Holy cow!" or "We could have died!" until I was laughing so hard we had to stop and wait for the cramp in my side to go away.

That's imaginative exploratory wandering.

I still play it. While blundering around the mountains this weekend my roommate and I pretended to be lost hikers in a desolate winter landscape. We climbed a small ridge in the deep snow and surveyed the area for possible shelter. We decided we could probably live off the bag of Cheerios in my car for a week. And when that ran out...

Well, she doesn't know this, but I also decided that under extreme circumstances I might have to use her as bait for large predatory animals.

Obviously, I would have made sure she wasn't really eaten.

It's in your genes

Only 28 more days until I fly home for Christmas! I'm so excited I could melt! 

Last Christmas we had almost all of the Washburns staying at my parents house. That's 23 bodies, 4 bathrooms, 7 bedrooms, 8 large pizzas, 100 dart guns, and 267 pairs of shoes scattered throughout the front room. 

It sounds crazy.

It is.

(This is us five years ago--add about seven more and you got us now)

But it's also endearing. 

We laugh too much for our own good most of the time. So, obviously, I thought my family was the wildest out there--until last night. My friend showed me these pictures yesterday and they crack me up! I had to share them!

Awkward Family Photo #1:

It's a proven fact that runts are contagious.

Awkward Family Photo #2:

It's important that each sibling holds his own weight.

(Look closely at each child...)

Awkward Family Photo #3:

"Grandma! We can still see you!"

Awkward Family Photo #4:

My all time favorite...

Thank you awkwardfamilyphotos.com for bringing our own family situations into perspective.

I found a giggle-ghost at the office

My office is haunted!

It is, I swear.

On Fridays I'm normally the only one downstairs for hours and hours at a time, and it gets pretty lonely. When the mailman stops by at noon I desperately try to think of something clever to say so he'll stay and chat with me.  It sounds manipulative. But it's not. Needless to say, it gets pretty quiet in the office, so when I came in this morning I decided to do all of my vacuuming right away, as soon as I got in. I didn't want it to be too quiet too early in my shift. So I rolled the vacuum out of the storage closet, plugged it into the wall, and smiled as the steady hum replaced the silence.

I was thinking about my mom's homemade salsa when the vacuum turned off. I looked down the power cord to the outlet and saw that it hadn't been pulled out of the wall. The vacuum turned back on again after that, so I shrugged it off and focused on the carpet again. Two seconds later, my whole body tensed. I felt the skin over my ribs pull tight. I shivered, looked up, and heard someone giggle behind me--I swear I did! Right after that the light above me went out and I screamed like nobody's business.

When my friend, Shannon, got to the office a couple minutes later I told her the whole story and we decided that we are definitely being haunted. The upside is I won't be so alone anymore. If I ever get lonely I can just pull out my ouija board, turn on the vacuum and have a little one-on-one time.

I like to make friends with people from all walks of life.

Well, and death.

I don't judge.
 

Here's to You

This weekend I took my new car out on its first road trip. One of my best friends, Kyrie, is leaving on her mission for Brazil this Wednesday so I drove the 200 something miles to Cedar City in order to have one last best buddies bash.

After I'd driven about 70 miles I stopped at a gas station to pick up some snacks. When I got back into my car I looked in my rear view mirror and noticed that some of my luggage was spilling out all over the back seat, so I turned around in my chair and tried to reorganize the mess. A couple minutes later, once everything was put back in its place, I turned to face the front again. 

And then I screamed. 

A man in a large woolen poncho was standing in front of my car. He was right up to the hood, peering into the windshield. We watched each other for a moment, and then I reached to my side and locked the doors. He just blinked and looked over his shoulder. I noticed that he was holding something under his poncho. After a few seconds, when he still hadn't moved, I looked in my passenger seat for possible weapons. 

I had a water bottle and a ziplock bag of Cheerios.

I decided on the water bottle.

Suddenly a woman came out of the gas station behind him. She walked up to the man, waved her arms around for a second, and then pointed at his poncho. He looked down, shrugged, and flipped the front of his poncho over his shoulder.

He was holding a tiny white puppy in the crook of his arm. The little puppy lifted its head, blinked, and then pushed its face back into the man's arm. The woman smiled, gently patted the man's shoulder and then they walked away in opposite directions.

I'm still not sure what happened. While I was driving away I was inspired to do two things:

1: Invest in some pepper spray for the next time I travel alone and

2: Learn how to crochet large ponchos

Good luck, Kyrie-dearie!

"There's an apple in my pocket..."

My Cadaver Face

Before waking up this morning I was dreaming that I was sitting on a cold picnic table with my niece, Lizzy. The stars were covered by low, heavy clouds and a thick fog was curling slowly over the grass. We were in a park waiting for someone or something in the middle of the night, and Lizzy was wearing a little dress with no coat. I could see the blue of her veins in her cold little legs. I tried to wrap my jacket around her but it would shrink or tear or drop in the wet grass if I tried. I finally just picked her up in my lap and started rubbing her arms and legs between my hands. I was rocking her back and forth in my arms when suddenly...

I realized I was drooling all over my pillow.
I've woken up drooling two mornings in a row now! It drives me bonkers because it gives me the willies to think about my mouth just hanging open while I'm unconscious-- my face muscles slack and squished by my pillow.
Like I'm a dead person.

When my old roommate, Sarah, was taking anatomy she had a lab workbook with pictures of cadavers that she studied for class. One night I sauntered into her room, sat on her bed and casually picked it up.

"What's this?" I asked.
She looked over her shoulder from her desk.
"That's my dead people book, " she said.
I flipped through the pages. Most of the pages were close-ups of the cadavers' faces, they're heads tilted slightly and they're mouths hanging slack.
I shivered.
"These were real people?" I asked.
"Yep."
"They used to have jobs and mortgages and allergies?"
"Yep."
"You mean...I could have sat by one of these people on the bus?"
"No," she said.
"Why not?"
She turned around.
"Do you ride the bus?" she smiled.
I shrugged.
She started to turn back to her homework.
"Oh my gosh," I said.
"What?" She turned to look at me.
"I could have walked past these people!"
"Everyone dies, Bekah."
"I could have smelled his cologne," I pointed at a picture, "and followed him around the grocery store!"
"You do that?"
"Or brushed past this lady at the mall!"
"It's really not that weird."
"Or they could have cut me off on the freeway and made me angry enough to wish they were..."
I looked over my shoulder, "dead..."


That night I had a dream I was lost in a huge warehouse with no lights and no windows. It was pitch black and I had to put my arms out in front of me to walk anywhere. Hundreds of dry-cleaning bags were hanging from the ceiling and I had to push them out of the way as I stumbled toward the wall. When I finally found the door I flipped the light switch and turned around. The "dry-cleaning" bags were actually hundreds of body bags, and I could see the shape of their gaping mouths as each face pressed up against the plastic.

And that's how my apartment's "cadaver face" was born.

And that's why I have to duct tape my mouth shut before bed tonight.

That, or sleep with a paper towel.

Hey, Soul Brotha'

This is Bee Money.

Bee Money is thirty three years old. He raps about the Gospel and his Bee-honeys. He has a learning disability and the innocence of an eight year old boy. He's become a local celebrity over the last couple of years, and in the last six months we've become kindred spirits.

It all started last May.

I was sitting in the grass at the park down the street. I was completely absorbed in my book and wasn't paying much attention to the people around me. Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed several guys making their way toward me. When I looked up from my book, there were three men standing side by side facing me. I smiled.
"Hi," I said.
"Excuse me," one of them said, stepping away from the other two and taking off his hat. "My name is Bee Money. I'm Provo's G-rated rapper. I didn't mean to bother you but I couldn't help but notice that you're exactly what I need."
I think I laughed at first. But his face was so serious that I quickly stopped. I folded my hands in my lap instead.
"Really?" I said.
"Yes. We were watching you from the pavilion and I think you'd be perfect for my music video."
"Oh."
"I'm looking for ambitious, career-minded people." He paused for a moment and put his hat back on. "How old are you?"
"Twenty two."
"Perfect."
"What if I said twenty nine?"
"Well," he shrugged his shoulders. "I don't judge."
He sat down next to me and we talked for another ten or fifteen minutes. He put his number in my phone (in order to find out when and where the filming would be), gave me a free CD, called me his "Bee-honey," and left.

Fast forward four months.

School had just started up again and my apartment was hosting a cookie party for our new and old friends. Several hours into the party one of my friends rushes through the crowd towards me and asks if I have change for a twenty.
"Why?" I said.
"'Cause Bee Money's here and he's selling shirts!"
No way, I thought.
We pushed our way back through the crowd towards the door. Bee Money was holding a pile of overly large "Gangsta'" shirts with his name and face printed on the front. I walked right up to him.
"Bee Money!" I cried over the noise. "Do you remember me?"
He turned, squinted his eyes, then smiled.
"I never forget a pretty face."
I folded my arms. "What's my name?"
He blinked a couple times, then scratched his head. "Well, sometimes I forget a pretty name..."
"It's Bekah," I smiled.
He put the pile of shirts on the couch next to him and gave me a hug.
"Of course it's Bekah," he said.

 He asked if he could take me out sometime, but I said it would be best if we just stayed friends.

"Is it because of my age?" he said. "Because you can ask my mom-- she says I have a heart of gold and I treat every lady like a ruby."
He pointed at his phone. "I can call her if you want."

Anytime I left to visit with other guests I'd hear, "Hey, um--" (he forgot my name a lot) "you wanna come over here and get to know me a little bit?"
"I'll be there in a minute, Bee Money," I'd call back.

He melts my heart. He reminds me of a little boy. Before he left he took me aside and said, "I got your back for anything, okay?"
"I know." I smiled and patted his shoulder.
"My mom says I got a heart of gold, I'd treat you right. So if you need someone to walk you home in the dark, call me, okay?"
"Okay, Bee Money."

Well, now he's my soul-brotha'.
And I just gotta look out for my homies.

Ticket to Ride the Train of Thought

Today is my birthday!

This morning while I was getting ready in the bathroom I sang "It's my party I can cry if I want to...."
Which made me wonder about crying in general. It's a little odd when you think about it out of context. It's like clapping.
And then this image of Kate Hutson in Skeleton Key popped into my head:

because we watched it a couple nights ago and her runny mascara has weirdly been branded into my memory.
And then I thought, I never let tears stream down my face--it itches. 

And then I remembered when I was 17 and had just broken up with my first boyfriend. So I nodded to myself and mumbled, Okay, maybe a couple times...

Which made me wonder. I don't cry anymore than other girls, do I?

I stopped brushing my hair and tried to remember the last time I cried.

I cried silently in my car a couple days ago. 

But that was because the song on the radio was beautiful. It was beautiful and sincere. And I was thinking about how much I love my new car. 

That's a legitimate reason to cry, I thought. Anyone would cry about that. So I picked up my brush and started doing my hair again. 

And then I remembered a conversation I had with my friends Peter and Paul about guys crying. 

So I thought, Would a guy think it's crazy to cry while listening to a song on the radio?

But I wasn't really crying. I was nostalgic.

There's a difference. I think there's a difference.

So I thought about the times I could remember crying:

When I was six I cried when we gave away our three little kittens.

And at nine I cried because a girl in my class said I had long fingers.

I cried at ten because I couldn't watch an episode of Xena the Warrior Princess.

At twelve I sobbed when Godzilla died because she was only trying to protect her babies.

When I was fourteen I made my little brother cry, which made me cry.

At eighteen I cried because the boy I thought I was in love with left for the summer.

And last night I cried in my sleep because I had a dream my friends made me marry a man with leather pants and light, fluffy hair.

Which brought me back to Kate Hutson and her dripping mascara.

At that point in my thoughts I realized I was standing in front of the mirror, holding my brush halfway to my head and staring off at some crack in the linoleum near the shower. I blushed at first for being so trapped in my own thoughts, but then I shrugged my shoulders.

It's my birthday, I can space if I want to.

An Up-Do for You

There's a family that walks past my office everyday--A mother, a little girl and a baby. There's an elementary school just down the street so I assume that's where they're headed. As soon as they walk past my window I perk up from behind my desk and strain to get a better look at them. I've made up a game surrounding the family sightings. Before they come I make a guess at what the little girl's hair will look like--pony-tail, flower head-band, curls, pig-tails. She always has a different hairstyle and I get excited to see if I can pin-point it before they show up. I eat a peppermint from the candy jar on my desk if I win.
If I lose I have to put on this really strong hand sanitizer.
To cleanse me from my sin.
When I was a little girl my hair most often looked like a a crazy old lady's. White, short and wildly unkempt. When I was really little my mom or older sisters would do my hair before I left for school. By the time I made it to the playground my barrettes were pulled out and a wild wave would bob haphazardly in the back of my head.
One morning I remember my mom was gone and my dad was getting me ready for school. We both stood in front of the bathroom mirror and looked at my hair.
"So," my dad said, "how does Mom normally do this thing." He pointed at my head.
"She put's it up in a pony."
"What's a pony?"
"It's like a horse's tail, right here." I scratched the back of my head and smiled at my reflection in the mirror.
"A tail on the back of your head?"
"Yeah."
"You want to look like a horse's behind?"
I blinked.
"...No." I said quietly.
"You want to look like a pony's behind?"
"...No." I thought for a moment. "I want--"
"What?" He adjusted his glasses.
"I want--" I looked down at my hands. "I want to look like a cat's behind."
He laughed then. I looked up to see his reflection in the mirror.
I smoothed down the front of my shirt and smiled too.
"Fine," he said. "I can do that."

Today I'm guessing she's wearing a little winter hat. That, or a gas mask.
I like to cover my bases.
 

Enlightenment

I think most people are made up of harmless inconsistencies.
My little brother, Ammon, is the kindest man within the Earth's atmosphere--he's also a skilled silent sniper on Halo.
My dear friend, Brittney, fears germs like I fear the mafia--but for some reason she wants to stick her hands in people's mouths for a living.
Children around the globe adore Santa--but they still scream like they're dying if they sit on his lap.

Everyone has a couple personality puzzle pieces that don't quite match up.
That's exactly what I should have explained to my friends Remington and Johnny. They both came over to my apartment a couple nights ago to show me and my roommates some creepy, Halloween movie trailers and YouTube videos. Twenty minutes later, the computer was pushed to the side and we were telling our own scary stories--eerie experiences that happened to our second cousins or old roommates' grandmothers.
I was totally in my element.
I breathe scary stories.
I'm addicted to the creepy, and mysterious, and ghostly.
After a particularly skin-crawlin' tale we were all stunned silent, our hearts pounding in fear and our eyes darting to every dark corner in the room. After a couple seconds I grabbed the yoga ball in front of me, wrapped my arms around it, and said,

"I just feel so happy right now!"

Johnny turned, looked at me, then said,

"You know, most people wouldn't expect you to be who you are."

I rested my head against the yoga ball. "What's that mean?" I asked.

"You just seem like this sweet, little girl. No one would guess that some of your favorite movies are the ones that make grown men pee their pants."

At the time I just laughed and shrugged my shoulders.
I should have explained the whole puzzle piece thing.

To Darwin and the Finches

I made a new friend this weekend, her name is Madeline.
And she is in love with Rob Lowe.

I learned a lot about life, love, and The West Wing from Madeline. Here's a summary of our conversation:

Madeline: (clutching a Home and Garden magazine, picture of Rob on cover) I'm not ashamed to say I love him. I think he's dashing. Here, (hands me the magazine) look at him.
Me: (flips to his article) I think he might be married--he has "wife details" in his house.
Madeline: (leans over to look) Like what?
Me: Like that puffy patio furniture. (turns a couple pages) And he has a polka dot message board in the kitchen.
Madeline: Let me see.
Me: He has nice taste though. I'd live in that house.
Madeline: I don't care that he's married. I love him.
Me: He's probably forty five now.
Madeline: I know. I definitely have a thing for middle-aged men.
Me: Really?
Madeline: Yeah. I don't know what it is...
Me: It's biology.
Madeline: How?
Me: Well, he's old enough to afford a nice house, life insurance and cute kitchen details. Your instincts tell you he's a good provider. That he'd protect your babies from coyotes. Things like that.
Madeline: And he has a nice jaw line.
Me: (looks at cover again) That's true too.

I think my instincts are telling me to eat more red meat.

And to buy a lavender cashmere sweater.

Brother from another Mother

My first thought this morning when I woke up was I want a vanilla protein shake, which is odd, at least for me. Especially since I normally wake up thinking I want a grilled cheese sandwich, or It smells like...paper. But I was hungry and I didn't have anything else planned for the morning so I decided to heed my own mental memo and go to Walmart.
I walked aimlessly along the aisles of the Halloween section for the first ten minutes because all of the costumes and decorations were out and I couldn't help but get distracted by them. Right next door to Halloween is the Automotive section, which normally I wouldn't be distracted by at all except that I just barely bought my first car, and I've developed a strange fixation with air fresheners.
Down the aisle I noticed a man and his two young sons. The older boy, who was probably seven, was hanging on the front of the cart explaining an important concept to his father,

"When I grow up, Dad, my arms will be too big for this jacket. When my hands are big we have to buy me a new one."

The father nodded and slowed the cart down to look at wiring for his headlights. The other little boy, who was probably four or five, was walking slowly a few feet behind them. His hood was pulled tightly around his face and he was looking down at his feet, watching his shoelaces flap back and forth. When I was about to walk past him he suddenly turned to the side and nearly ran into me. We both stopped, our shoes squeaking on the linoleum. He looked up at my face, and I smiled. His eyes widened and then he giggled and waved.
Seconds later, when I had walked a couple steps, I heard the little boy yell to his father,

"Dad, look! That girl down there looks like my Mommy!"

I don't know why, but it made my whole day.

Oh, and I bought a ten pack of Equate French Vanilla Protein Shakes.

            

Ruffians

I watched a man get arrested a few days ago.
I was sitting behind my desk at the office when two officers walked through the front doors. Like a good receptionist, I smiled, tilted my head and said,
"Hi, what can I do for you?"
"We're actually looking for someone," one of them said. "We think he's upstairs."
They stood side by side. They smelled like fruit. Actually, one of them smelled like fruit--he was chewing gum.
"What's his name?" I asked.
The one chewing gum pulled out a slip of paper and leaned across my desk to hand it to me.
A few minutes later, the officers escorted the man from upstairs to my front lobby. They had him stand in front of my desk when they gave him his rights. When they were putting on his handcuffs, the officer without the gum looked the man in the face and said,
"Well, that's that. Anything ya need here before we go?"
The man didn't respond for a second. Then he turned slowly and looked at me, a small smile on his face.
The officer without gum shook his head and stepped toward my desk.
I grabbed the sides of my swivel chair.
"You can have this," the officer said, picking out a Jolly Rancher from the candy jar beside me. "You're in enough trouble already."
They walked out the front doors and I watched them through the windows get into their car and drive away.
A few seconds later I realized it still smelled like fruit.

Justice may be blind, but it smells an awful lot like pomegranates.