Happy to Help

You know how there are just some people you meet and you love them immediately, and you'd do anything for them? You just know the world smiles on them, and everywhere they go they experience that phenomenon of benevolence.

Rojo is one of those people. People nearly fall over themselves trying to make his path smoother and his life as pleasant as possible. It's happened all his life and I have every reason to believe it will continue, but still, scarcity mentality creeps in now and then and I go into a panic thinking what will happen to him if/when I'm not around to run the show?

We are super happy that Rojo has gained 23 lbs. in the last 18 months. He needs to gain at least another 23, and that's if he doesn't grow an inch, which he seems to do just about every day, however. So, while we are on the right track, we have a ways to go. The boy likes glazed donuts from 7-11, what can I say? I did not introduce them to him, but am definitely his accomplice in that crime, now. We go to 7-11 almost every day. We go so often and have visited so many, we now have our favorite, which, thank you, God, also happens to be the closest to us.

We had gone in enough times only to discover that all the glazed donuts were gone, leaving disappointed, that pretty soon we started hearing from our favorite employee, "I save for you!" Then she'd dash off into the back room and come back with two she'd secreted away just for us. "I know you trying to gain him weight," she'd say, since I'd let her in on that several dozen donuts earlier.

That employee works Monday through Friday 9-5 and we love her. We had yet to really get to know the  weekend 9-5 employee, but today we went in and he was working. We recognized him and said hi. He looked Rojo right in the eye and tried to initiate conversation (something I always appreciate). Rojo did okay and even kept the conversation going for a few beats. We walked straight to the donut case and there were four beauties just waiting for us. We took all four. Two to eat in the store while we "browsed," and two to eat after lunch. Rojo talked me into a Starbucks Frappucchino in an oversized bottle that will take me three days to consume, and we approached the register. The twinkly-eyed man behind the counter had clearly been talking to our M-F friend. "I save for you next time. You come and they are gone, you tell me, and I save in the back. How many you want? Two? Four? I save for you every day."

We assured him that two was all that was really "necessary," and thanked him profusely. "I happy to help," he said.

And as Rojo polished off donut #2 and we left the store, I realized just how true that was of most people. And as I vowed to make sure I went in each day to purchase those saved donuts, I also vowed to not forget that "happy to help" is not just something nice that people say, it's a basic truth.