 The Good Day -Alex Farr So ok, it doesn't happen very often, but every once in a while I have a good day. And, even less often, I run across people that renew some spark of hope about this shithole of a city. It started innocently enough. The computer dispatched me to a HUD apartment building in a not-so-bad neighborhood. I didn't have anything better to do, so I actually went straight there. It was a relatively sane seeming woman, wanting me to take her to pick up her kids from school. Routine stuff. So I take her to the school, and I wait for her to fetch her kids. It was great though, as they were coming back her oldest son, who was maybe in second or third grade was asking her something or other "... I mean, I just want to know." "Why do you always be wanting to know stuff?" his mom answered him. "You always gotta be knowing..." And this kid, I grinned when he answered "Cause then I'll have more knowledge, to fill up my big old head." I managed to keep from laughing at this brilliant answer, while his mom lectured him "You know, you don't always have to know stuff. Sometimes you just have to trust Mommy, and not know what you want to know..." It was sad, hearing this lecture on the virtues of ignorance, but I got the feeling the kid wasn't gonna be brainwashed. He was gonna keep on collecting knowledge to fill his big old head... and it warmed my cold heart. Mom, meanwhile, decided she needed to make one more stop on the way home. She wanted me to make a quick stop at McDonald's. I figured her lecture about not knowing must have reminded her of the place... but I just said sure thing. The drive-thru line was absurd, so she decided to just go into the lobby, leaving her kids with me in the car. I guess she could tell I have an emergency teaching credential, which qualifies me as a babysitter. While we were waiting, the other kid caught me by surprise too. "Here," he said, handing me a not-so-sticky-anymore red heart sticker "... happy Valentine's Day, a little early." "Uhh..." was all I could say. It was totally out of the blue. Totally random. It took me a few seconds to get my head around the surreality of it, and finally answer "Why, how very Dada of you... keep it up, you'll make a hell of an artist one day." It was mid-January at the time. I just laughed, and tried to stick it to the dash. It was almost enough to make me re-consider teaching, finding two kids with some spark of intelligence and potential in one car like that... but then I'd have to stop swearing again. I really fucking hate not swearing. Eventually Mom came out with a couple of heaping bags of McGoo, and I took the family back to their Section 8 squalor. I waved goodbye, and wished them the best. It was not an average day.
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