The Bell Ringer
The day is a bit frantic, lots to do, and not enough time to
do it in. An after dark cup of coffee is just what I
need for the final leg of
my journey that began shortly after sunrise. There’s a place near the last
place on my list of places to go; a Christmas Shoppe on the week before
Christmas. I can hardly wait.
There’s a line at the drive-thru so I park the car and walk
in. A couple of teenage boys are the only people in the place and as soon as I
enter one of them cuts in front of me and asks the girl behind the counter,
“how much for a medium hot chocolate?”
“Two-fifty plus tax,” the girl replied.
“What about the .99 cent special?” asked the kid.
“You need a receipt from before noon today,” she replied as
sternly as the kid’s question was surly. He snorted and put his buck back in
his pocket and returned to his friend, rejected.
“Can I help you?” asked the girl behind the counter, finally
noticing me. I hate being invisible.
“A medium hot coffee, just milk.” I thought for a moment
then said “and two medium hot chocolates.”
“You want whipped cream?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
The boys sat at a little table in the corner, two kids with
no money and nothing to do but around the coffee shop. Their uniform of skinny
jeans and hoodies didn’t look all that different from mine some thirty-five
years ago, only my jeans were faded and an old army jacket took the place of
the hooded sweatshirts. One thing had changed though, we used to hang around
outside the stores; nobody would let us in
.
“You guys want whipped cream?” I asked them.
They looked back, bewildered.
“Two with whipped cream,” I said to the girl behind the
counter, and she went to work.
“Merry Christmas guys, I remember how it feels to be broke,”
I said, and dropped the cups on their table.
The kids were stunned, and though they tried to remain cool
could not suppress the delight my small gesture had on them. It never fails to amaze me how a smile can
transform a person; these two went from thug imitators to a couple of regular
high school kids who just got an unexpected treat.
They got a hot chocolate, but I got much more. The looks on
their faces when they realized what I had done was not at all what I would have
thought. There was no suspicion, no uneasiness or sarcasm, just a genuine
helping of gratitude that even the angst of adolescent life could not disguise.
I think that they were as surprised with their response as I was. I doubt if
anything like what just happened to them had ever happened to them before. In a
world full of predictability something completely unpredictable had just
happened.
Maybe I’m kidding myself and my gesture was no big deal. But
maybe it was. Maybe these two kids who were hanging around a donut shop with
nothing to do spent a few minutes enjoying their hot chocolate and feeling a
little better about the people they share their world with. Maybe the next time
they see an older guy coming they’ll hold the door for him, and that guy will
get a different perspective of today’s youth, and not think that they are all a
bunch of rude, unmotivated, texting, video game addicted creeps with no
manners. Maybe that guy will see that these kids are a lot like he was when he
was young, and though our pastimes have changed considerably, we are more alike
than different.
And just maybe that guy will go home, and see his estranged
teenaged son as a person again, and maybe he’ll find the patience he had lost,
and maybe he’ll be able to recapture the magic between father and son that
always seems to slip away between age 13 and twenty, no matter if it’s 1975 or
2014, or any time there have been fathers growing old and sons growing up.
Yeah, it was just a couple of hot chocolates, and there is a
good a chance that the kids thought I was a chump. But there’s something
magical about doing something good and decent for somebody else when there is
nothing in it for you. You get to think about what you did any way you want,
and allow those thoughts to grow into feelings. And it just feels great to think
you made a difference.
I brought my good feelings with me to the Christmas Shoppe.
I picked up the things on the list my wife had provided, and after cashing out
the lady at the register quietly asked if I had “the coupon.”
“What coupon?” I asked.
The lady behind me gave me hers. It was good for
ten bucks. I stashed the dough in my shirt, smiled and walked out. When I
dropped the ten in the Salvation Army Bell ringer’s pot I realized that forces
far greater than myself were at work. And it felt great to be part of it.
