Last night just as we were pulling back into town from an amazing visit with "the boy", "the girl" sent me a text asking what time we were getting back and if we had eaten. We were ten minutes from our driveway, having stopped to pick up a few groceries, and no we hadn't stopped for dinner. The last thing we'd eaten was Chinese take out sitting on the floor with the boy hours before, and hubby was hungry.
I was happily surprised to know they were at our house and our grand baby and one of her bff's were waiting on the front porch to ask us to go to Steak 'n Shake with them.
We quickly unloaded the car and headed out. Hubby had taken my purse in the house, but I wasn't worried he could pay. What I had forgotten was that Ava always asks me for quarters for the gum machines and I always have quite a few stashed just for her. Not last night. They were all at home in my purse.
They were disappointed, but little sweeties about it, and we moved on to talking and waiting for our table. That Steak 'n Shake sure does a business. There was a man sitting there waiting to pay, but what caught my eye was his bright orange shoes.
We must have looked quite a sight, two little girls that had been playing hard outside all day, a young mom in her jammie bottoms and little make up, and two old people that had just driven a total of six hours and were exhausted. Oh yeah we looked the sight.
He evidently had heard me say "sorry not this time". I have no idea what prompted his next action, but it amazed and cheered me to no end. Because while looking down talking to those little sweeties about their day, those bright orange shoes stepped into my line of vision yet again. The next words blew me away! These things just don't seem to happen in this day and age.
The nice young man with the bright orange shoes, very sweetly said "here you go girls", he handed them equal numbers of quarters, and not just one each either. Those two little girls were beside themselves in their excitement at receiving six quarters each!! They both stammered a sweet thank you, their eyes bigger than Christmas morning. It was then that I looked up and saw the sparkle in his eyes and the huge smile on his face. For $3.00 he had bought an entire group of people a lot of happiness, himself included.
It was incredible to witness, even more incredible that he was blushing at the thank you's as he walked away back to his table and the lovely lady he'd had dinner with. We will never know what prompted him to do that, why he felt compelled to make two little six year old girls smile like that, but he did. And as he and his date were leaving he was still smiling as those two girls were trying to make decisions based on the number of coins in their little hands.
The last thing I saw was those bright orange shoes as I looked down to help them hold their treasures. Orange is my new favorite color, it will forever represent to me the goodness of the human spirit, joy
and unselfishness. That small gift, may have been huge to him, it was definitely huge to those two little girls last night.
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