Coffee Thank You
December 19th, 2008
[posting this before work, i don't have time to edit or spell check but- i don't care. i'll do it later. love, peace, and tofu grease, may all your dreams come true!]
I wanted to post about this the other day but somehow it just didn’t happen. Now that I look back I’m starting to think it’s because I was writing about it for the wrong reason. I wanted to write about it because I just wanted to tell others what we’d done, now I want to write about it because I want to share mye experince and my thoughts on it which is a different matter entirely.
The other day was absolutely wonderful. Kei and I hung out in the bookstore for a few hours while my Hubby was in classes, he had a really big test today and was all kinds of frazzled about it. He always gets like that even though he’s so smart and almost never gets anything below and A-, but then again he looks down on himself and his skills if he get’s that little minus on the end, silly Hubby, doesn’t know how awesome he is.
Anyways, so Kei and I hung out for awhile doing some research on a project of ours, sitting in the middle of the store with artbooks, drawing pads, notebooks, and all that jazz trying to get the image of our story characters down on paper. It was pretty fun. I never really had an exact visual in my head up until this point, I mean I knew so-and-so looked like such-and-such but I didn’t know such-and-such had a specific sort of shade to it or made so-and-so look that much more like who she was. It was really fun. :)
At some point in time we decided we needed to do a little shopping for that silly Husband of mine. I know a trinket can’t do much to cheer one up or make them feel better about certain situations but just knowing that I noticed he was upset and that I was thinking about him probably helps in it’s own way. So, through the snow and ick we trudged on down to Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart… was an interesting experience. Mind you I’ve been very… wide awake… most of this week and thus have a surplus of energy that might not be being channeled towards the right uses- not that I care, but let’s just say one shouldn’t try to ride their shopping carts through a public store if it takes two to steer the darn thing in the first place. Also, if it takes two to steer a shopping cart, the two people it takes probably shouldn’t be allowed to steer at all. Finally, if it takes two to steer a shopping cart and the one is trying to ride the shopping cart it doesn’t matter how quiet you are trying to be someone is going to hear it eventually. :) Not that I’m speaking from any recent experience mind you.
We spent little less than an hour in there, most of which was spent trying not to crash our cart while walking normally, I think the thing had it out for us, while we went around trying to find something to cheer my Hubby up. ventually we settled on this awesome jar candle that smelled like hazelnut coffee. With my asthma it’s hard to find scented things to get rid of that pet smell in our house but I don’t usually have trouble with certain candles, because my kitty still hasn’t learned not to lick lit flames we like to get the ones that come in jars. It was perfect. The lady at the counter made a comment on how she’d never heard of one buying a candle for their husband, I thought it was silly, he loves candles. Why not buy him one? :)
We ate a spinache and meetball sub with mustard on it at Sub-Way (hey, I like the combo, okay?) and then headed back out into the cold, now this is where this post is going to take a slightly different turn for the night. It’s a moment that makes my heart like up with a billion dazzeling flames.
Before on our way in we saw an older gentalman standing over a charity bucket ringing a bell to collect donations for the needy. I’d told Kei to remind me if I forgot to put some money in the bucket, in the end I didn’t need to be reminded but I would have felt awful later if I forgot somehow. Something caught me though as I put my money in and the man gave me a heartfelt thank you. Though this was the same man who’d been standing out here in the cold when we entered the store over an hour ago, and though it was snowing even harder than before, and despite the fact that he was walking circles to probably keep from freezing his thank you still sounded so sincere. I wondered when the last time was that someone had thanked him for what he was doing as Kei and I walked on back down to Borders intent on getting some warm drinks as soon as we entered the bookstore.
That’s when it hit me.
When we finally got back to the store, figners cold, and teeth chattering despite the fact that the walk isn’t that long and we were only out there for a moment my sister and I sat down and I went through what money I had in my purse. Together we decided that instead of buying our own hot drinks we’d buy this awesome good sameritain a hot coffee. It wasn’t much and that extra bit of change could have gone towards the charity but I had to do it. He’d been out there for quite awhile and in my mind I figure someone should have already brought him some. That’s just the way my little universe works.
The guy at the counter of the coffee place knows my Hubby and I and thus knows that I am absolutely not supposed to have any form of caffein. Ever. He thought I was ordering it for me and started to joke about how he was going to tell my Hubby so I told him what we were doing. The lady behind me, I honestly didn’t see her back there and she kind of scared me a little bit, thanked me. At first I was really confused, she didn’t have a reason to thank me but then as we spoke and I looked at her I got it. She was thanking me for helping him in the only way I could, for doing some small act of kindness even though she wasn’t involved at all. What struck me was once more how when someone said thank you they sounded so sincere. It was the second time I’d heard it that day and yet those two thank you’s sounded so much more- anything than I’ve probably ever heard. It restored another bit of faith in me.
Kei and I walked back into the cold even though it was very against our baser natures. She didn’t have a coat and let’s just say I don’t handle the cold well- ever. Either way, we walked on down, I kept my hand over the lid of the coffee trying to keep it just a little more warm throughout the trip. It wasn’t much, just a simple black coffee and I snarled at myself later for not thinking to bring sugar and creamer packets with me but with his gloves on it probably would have been more trouble than it was worth.
Giving it to him was the hardest part, neither Kei nor I are very communicative by nature. Not even with people we know unless we’re writing to them. It took a moment or two but eventually I made myself go up to him and though I can’t remember off the top of my head the exact words I used it went something like this:
“Excuse me, sir?” He turns towards me and I hold out the coffee in front of me. “I know it’s not much but my sister and I wanted to thank you for everything you guys do. It’s just a simple black coffee, nothing special, but we wanted you to have it.”
His eyebrows went up into his forehead and the man smiled this great big honest smile and it was awesome. He was kind of speechless for a moment until he could get a thank you out, Kei and I just smiled back put another buck in the bucket and walked away and it was awesome. The whole weay back neither of us could stop talking about how his smile was so great and that it felt so nice to be the ones to have brought it out. We don’t know him, and he didn’t know us, but either way we all brought out a smile each other, each giving and recieving as the season promotes.
The rest of our night at the bookstore passed without anything of interest happening but our moods were in the sky, you couldn’t have found two more cheerful girls that night. I watched Kei draw some more for awhile and we ran around a bit singing songs of our own creation (ie. the roadkill song) and getting strange looks from people, randomly walking up to strangers and saying with great enthusiasm “I love your pajammas” because they really were cool, and dancing to our own beat in the universe.
Later we bought ice creame though it’s winter time and all we do it complain about the cold but for it we apreciated the warmth all that much more. :) I still haven’t been able to stop thinking about that man’s smile, it cheers me up even now as I write this and now I’m going to go to work and teach the roadkill song to some of my coworkers in hopes of sharring my same cheer with them. :)
