Doing my part to bring a little magic back to the world for the neighborhood kids.
I was on a short mental health walk down to the canal, only to be disappointed by how many mimosa and pine trees (huge! Huge pine trees!) people had cut down. So I headed back home past the little playground, planning to sit for a few minutes and remember playing with grandchild there.
I waved hi to a couple of kids on bikes, and then the ice cream truck went flying by.
I have no idea why, but this guy always goes suuuuper fast instead of dawdling for people to catch him. I knew my husband had to have seen him zoom past, with our usual frustration of him being uncatchable.
So as the kids’ heads came up and they started to yearn, I called out “If you can catch him, I’ll buy!”
They were off like a shot, although one of them turned back and yelled, “but how will YOU catch him?” I replied, “I’ll be there, go!”
See, the road loops up there, and the ice cream guy always comes back past our place so I was sure he’d take the loop. The kids followed behind him the long way and I trotted to the loop, listened, took off my flats so they wouldn’t fly off without me, and RAN.
And there he was coming around the curve towards me. I flagged him down and waved to the kids, who were just coming around the curve behind him, shouting.
“How did you know?! How did you do that?!”
“Told you I’d be here :D What would you guys like?”
They got their stuff (bomb pops and some kind of Italian ice thing) and I got our stuff (with their advice on what to get for my sister-in-law), and I wish I’d remembered to ask the guy to slow down so we could buy from him more often.
And they asked again, how did I do that?! I gave them my husband’s favorite answer, “You have to be smarter than the truck! I figured he was going to loop around, but I was hoping you’d slow him down if he tried to leave the neighborhood.”
The taller one gave me a huge hug.
I hope I see them around again, and I hope I gave them as much magic as that hug gave me 🥰
