First Ripple Today
We got a new Starbuck's. First one in South Texas and
I mean everybody has asked me if I had been to try it.
Of course I've said no, I personally think coffee tastes
like it would kill fleas,,,,or worse, and at four or five
dollars a drink I would rather have a nice Highland
Single Malt.
So tired of all the explaining, I went. Sitting down I spied a young neighborhood woman who has her own real estate company and her hubby is an engineer at one of the plants here, they are the picture of success for thirty somethings. Nice home, nice cars, a boy seven and a girl eight.
She spied me and smiling came to fawn over her coffee, asking me what flavor I got, to which I replied, "pet dip".
Laughing and bubbling along she began telling me about her kid's candy and nut selling projects for school and a predicament she found herself in.
Seems as though she was driving the neighborhoods with the boy working one side of the street, the little girl the other when the little girl came back to the car with no money and no candy or nuts.
"I asked her why and she said the little girl who answered the door told her they didn't have any money and hardly anything to eat. Her father had lost his job and they may lose their house before her father started a new job after the holidays" she told me.
She went on while I listened, telling me how she agonized all night knowing that those houses were worth a lot and the people had lived there for several years paying on it.
The next day she looked the property up on her computer, found the name of the mortgage company and finding it under foreclosure.
She promptly, knowing her hubby might fuss, contacted
them. She knew the people at the mortgage company so it wasn't a problem for her to catch the payments up and a month ahead to give the family a chance at getting their lives back together.
Sitting there looking at her cute young face, a trailing
Christmas stocking cap on and all her holiday regalia
pinned on her clothes, I thought to myself, "what about
utilities, food, gifts for the children" when she bubbled
up again.
"I went to the supermarket (we have a big chain) and
bought certificates for the family to spend at the store.
They will have plenty to make it until he goes to work.
They have a utility payment desk there for the city so I
caught up those bills too and I gave their address to the children's toy group I work with so they will have
something for the holiday", she told me.
Sitting there chuckling to myself I asked her what she
thought her hubby was going to say, to which she
replied, "I make five times what he does, he'd better not ruin my Christmas high, he'll sleep in the pool's change room."
"She's not a ripple maker", I thought to myself, "she's a
tsunami".
Mark Crider, Existential philosopher, raconteur, and dean of dirty
words. © 2003