Right before our Thanksgiving getaway, I had to run to Walgreens. You know how it is -- tiny shampoos, tiny toothpaste, travel candy, etc. Then I headed to Wendy's to grab us an early dinner as we had successfully emptied the apartment of perishable food before our Thanksgiving jaunt. The helpful drive-thru window attendant apologized that the fries would not be ready for another two minutes. No problem. I love hot fries. So I pulled forward and put the Focus in park.
This particular Wendy's is on Lawrence Avenue which can be a very busy thoroughfare. As is common for me, the mandated time-out waiting for fries allowed me the opportunity to observe a few things that I would have otherwise missed in my attempts to make a quick left onto Lawrence without dying in order to make it home with fries above room temperature.
The first thing I noticed was a man in a beat-up old Honda something-or-other. He was parked at the curb on the side of Lawrence that I was on -- headed east. He looked nervous. He kept checking his mirrors. Then I heard the transmission crunch as he put it in first, pulled the wheel all the way left, and hit the gas. He made a u-turn across four lanes of traffic just like that. When he made it to the other side of the street, the transmission crunched again as he put it in reverse and proceeded to alternate between first and reverse in order to park the car on that side of the street -- exactly opposite of where he was parked before he risked his life to get the new spot. Once he was happy with the car's placement and parallelness, he got out and walked into the building that was right in front of the car. Odd.
Soon after the super-parker had disappeared into his building, I saw a family walking towards me. They were clearly coming back from the Sears that is a little east of the Wendy's. It was mom, three boys, and two girls. I would bet that the oldest was 12. Each child and mom had a bag from Sears. It was clear that each bag contained something that each had picked. The youngest, and last in line, was a girl. She decided to do away with her Sears bag and instead proudly carried her purchase unconcealed. In her arms she held a baby doll that was still securely fashioned to the box in a reclining pose. I know how tough those plastic ties can be. The doll looks like you could just reach out and lift her up from her nap -- when the reality is that she is permanently affixed to the box by her ankles, wrists, and neck. I loved that the little girl was so happy. She was beaming. She didn't need the doll to be free of the box to hold her baby. She had removed her mittens to wriggle her hands behind her new charge and the plastic ties that bound her in order to clasp her baby to her chest ignoring the box completely.
The youngest girl and her doll were last in the mother-and-ducklings line. Just as she had passed from my view as they crossed in front of the Wendy's, she reappeared with a smile and happiness upon her face even greater than what I had just witnessed. Her eyes and mouth were open wide. She was almost levitating with joy. Her brothers were working quickly to move past her. It was one of those "but, wait! there's more!" moments. Mom had just announced that they and their new purchases were going to eat at Wendy's!
I remember that kind of joy. My dad used to take each of us kids out to breakfast at McDonalds for our birthdays and I thought it was the best thing ever. We got to eat inside! We didn't have to take it home! I could get my own orange juice and drink it through a straw! I didn't have to share any of it with a sister or brother!
My fries arrived and I was struck that I thought of this trip to Wendy's as a nuisance, an easy way out of a no-food-in-the-house situation. A less-than-desirable quickie meal that required me to sit and wait in the fast-food drive thru. But for that little girl, a trip to Wendy's was the icing on the cake of the best day ever.
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