Cheering it Forward

Today I got to pick Mitchel up right after school. It’s the first time in awhile I have gotten to ride with just him, since he has had football practice at the same time as his older brother David for the last three months. So I was actually looking forward to my twenty minutes of time in the car with him. Boys are sometimes hard to pin down in conversation. Unless they are trapped in the car with you. Even then it depends on the day and the mood and whether or not you happen to be super annoying to them. 

Naturally I was late. 

I actually blame Maria. This morning at 10 am she  texted me a picture of a Starbucks snowman cookie and peppermint mocha and said “the holidays have officially begun”. Those yummy, sugary, buttery snowmen cookies are the BOMB and my mouth actually started to water. I texted back “I’m SO going to reward myself with one tomorrow AND a Chestnut Praline LatteeDatee.” 

Yum. 

But when I was late to pick up Mitchel and thought to myself, since I was already late, I might as well make it worth being late and have a yummy Snowman cookie and a steaming hot chocolate waiting for him. HELLO! Mom points. 

PLUS I would also then avoid all the snarky pushy parents blocking traffic because they think their kid is the prince of England and therefore should not have to walk half a block where the PROPER line forms. 

Anyway. I pulled into the Starbucks that I go to quite a bit. It’s in a weird spot and their drive through is really complicated and I ALWAYS seem to get it wrong and try to enter through the exit only.  Every. Single. Time. I honestly think it’s some kind of emotional block where I second guess myself. Today was no different and I found myself sort of wedged and was trying to turn my car around to face the correct way in order to hit the drive through going the right direction when this grumpy old man in a beat up old pick up truck turned into the parking lot at full speed and just glared at me because I wasn’t moving fast enough even though I was CLEARLY trying to hurry. I couldn’t let him go ahead because I was blocking the little parking lot. So I hurried faster: scooch back, scooch forward, three times (waving and smiling and panicked) until I finally was able to pull into the drive through. 

In front of him. 

AND of course there was a super happy chatty person in front of me in line,  which was fine with me but NOT fine with the man behind me who was giving me the meanest, grinch glare and nudging his truck closer and closer to my bumper as though it would speed things up. 

When it was finally my turn to order I naturally took my time and chatted with the cute barista guy while waiting for my snowman cookies and drinks for me and Mitchel. But I also paid for the grinch’s Grande Caramel Fattachino. And that made my cute barista guy so happy and even MORE chatty that he gave me TWO free reusable holiday cups instead of just one, like I was apparently supposed to get but didn’t even KNOW about! And that just made me so unexpectedly happy that I tipped him a couple MORE dollars and chatted some more. I mean two pretty, reusable holiday cups AND snowman cookies? It just doesn’t get any better than that! At least during that moment in time. 

Until the grinch honked and broke our happy fest. 

The cute barista guy just laughed. “Whatya gonna do? Yeah?” 

I laughed and FINALLY (to the grinch’s grumpy pleasure) drove off, now even MORE late than I had planned giggling to myself about killing ‘em with kindness and paying it backwards or forwards or whatever it is, so as to confuse the grumpy universe with cheer. 

And THEN I pulled in to glorious almost empty parking area with no bitchy parent drivers and prince Mitchel only had to walk about twenty steps and was greeted by holiday cheer and actually chatted with me for ten of the twenty minutes of our drive! 

So this is why it was Maria’s fault I was late. But SHE is also responsible for cheering it forward so I’m pretty sure the world is a better place than it was before I was late.