what I really liked as a little kid was that an old nice man would visit our neighbourhood every saturday in his little green fiat 126p, park on the edge of our old and ugly playground, and set up his cotton candy machine.Â
it was a loud and horrible metal thing smelling of fuel and burnt sugar. it was the best cotton candy ever. the small cotton candy cost 50gr and the big one (so big you couldnât eat it alone!) cost 1zĹ. heâd always wait as we stood under the balconies, each kid yelling MAMOOOOOOOOOOOOO DAAJ MI NA WATEEE
if you only had super small change like 20gr heâd still make one for you, just very small. and if you stayed until obiad time when he would start disassembling the whirring miracle machine, heâd let you scrub out the sticky bits of half-cottoned sugar with ice cream sticks.
cheesy songs would play on his little radio and a gaggle of other grandpas and uncles would gather around him if the day was sunny to talk about old times. weâd tease him all the time, monsters that we were, or try to sneak into his ugly-green maluch.
made a lot kids smile, especially if you didnât really have much money.Â
hope youâre alright, wherever you are.
and you know, itâs funny â each time that I see a green fiat like his or each time I see cotton candy, I think of this man. heâs probably gone now, none of us even ever knew his name, he was just pan od waty. but even a loose 50gr coin found in a pocket now makes me think, 20 years later:
oh, enough for a small cotton candy on saturday!Â




























