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A Moment In the Day in the Life...
Oct. 2nd, 2011 01:42 pmSo in the basement of my apartment building, there's a few things for the residents. The laundry facilities, a gym, and a couple of vending machines. Today is laundry day for Yours Truly, so I found myself headed down.
When I got there, I found a gaggle of young kids ranging from 3 or 4 to (possibly) 13. They were hovering around the vending machines and had clearly been given some change by their folks and told to head down and getout of Mom and Dad's hair a special treat. As there was ~6 or 7 of them, my initial thought was "Oh great. Now I'm going to have to listen to loud, obnoxious, unchaperoned kids while I start my laundry."
I hadn't been in the laundry room more than a couple seconds when one of the kids called out to me "Excuse me..." a bit more loudly than they needed to in the way that children do when they're in a group. I turned to look and the kids explained that their Doritos were stuck in the vending machine and asked for my help?
I headed over and tried to lift the front of the machine in order to give it a little bounce - hopefully freeing the snack. I found the machine heavier than expected, and possibly attached to the floor. It didn't move at all. I felt kinda like an idiot as I looked at the thing and a bit useless as I realized that I might actually not be able to lift it enough to shake it. However, with one more significant burst, the bounce happened, the snack fell, and the kids had what they wanted. I was surprised to hear them say (as a group) "Thank you." Bitter Irritable Old Man Matt doesn't expect to ever hear that from kids these days. Especially a gaggle of kids in the basement of an apartment building without adult supervision.
The kids continued to play around with the vending machine as some of them hadn't yet selected their treat. I went about loading my laundry into the washers.
As I was doing that, I turned away from the washers at one point and found myself eye to eye with a little girl (probably ~4 or 5) who was eating the Doritos that I'd gotten to fall free. This bold little creature just looked me in the eye and with a bashful little voice said "Thank you." again.
Bitter Irritable Old Man Matt's heart melted.
When I got there, I found a gaggle of young kids ranging from 3 or 4 to (possibly) 13. They were hovering around the vending machines and had clearly been given some change by their folks and told to head down and get
I hadn't been in the laundry room more than a couple seconds when one of the kids called out to me "Excuse me..." a bit more loudly than they needed to in the way that children do when they're in a group. I turned to look and the kids explained that their Doritos were stuck in the vending machine and asked for my help?
I headed over and tried to lift the front of the machine in order to give it a little bounce - hopefully freeing the snack. I found the machine heavier than expected, and possibly attached to the floor. It didn't move at all. I felt kinda like an idiot as I looked at the thing and a bit useless as I realized that I might actually not be able to lift it enough to shake it. However, with one more significant burst, the bounce happened, the snack fell, and the kids had what they wanted. I was surprised to hear them say (as a group) "Thank you." Bitter Irritable Old Man Matt doesn't expect to ever hear that from kids these days. Especially a gaggle of kids in the basement of an apartment building without adult supervision.
The kids continued to play around with the vending machine as some of them hadn't yet selected their treat. I went about loading my laundry into the washers.
As I was doing that, I turned away from the washers at one point and found myself eye to eye with a little girl (probably ~4 or 5) who was eating the Doritos that I'd gotten to fall free. This bold little creature just looked me in the eye and with a bashful little voice said "Thank you." again.
Bitter Irritable Old Man Matt's heart melted.
