One day, not all that long ago, Scooter, while out shopping
with his mom, noticed a very beautiful parked car. Up until this point in his life Scooter had
not paid any attention to cars at all.
For one thing he was just a little boy and driving a car had never
occurred to him. His entire world had
been build from Lego's and most recently playing simple computer games on his
sister’s computer.
This car, however, had captured his attention. It was as if someone had parked it there just
for him to see. The color of it seemed
deep, almost magical and its design oozed speed. In Scooter’s mind he could see
it racing along the computerized road that he had seen on the computer screen
and traveling 1000 miles per hour no doubt.
Scooter wanted it. He
was so dazzled in fact that he was unconsciously squeezing his Mother’s
hand. She stopped walking and looked
down at him.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
Scooter looked up at his mom. “We need to talk.”
They had lunch upstairs in the department store cafeteria. Their conversation was serious and quite
detailed as mom explained about growing up and getting an education so an
employer would hire him. Then she
explained about having a job, saving and building good credit. Scooter hung on every word. By the time the waitress had delivered their
apple pie Scooter was trying hard to figure how long all of that schooling and
working and saving was going to take.
His mental calculations were getting jumbled as he had no
real reference for any of it and his facial expression began to show despair.
“I thought this would be easier.” he said, and set his fork
down, ignoring the rest of his pie.
Driving home from the mall his mother was going over their
conversation in her mind. She was
feeling bad about being so realistic in responding to her son’s excitement over
the sports car.
Occasionally she glanced over at Scooter. He was just sitting quietly staring out the
side window but she could tell he was very disappointed. She was wishing she could turn the clock
back, she wanted a do-over, she wanted to just share in his excitement and let
him continue to think about all of the possibilities.
As she pulled into their driveway her daughter Samantha
stood waiting for her. She did not look
happy. Right when her Mother opened the
car door Sam started in. “You were
supposed to take ME to the mall. Why
didn’t you wait for me, I told you I wanted to go. I want to buy some Riverbed Sneakers. I showed you the ad. The sale ends tomorrow. Stupid Scooter didn’t need to go.”
Her mother didn’t respond, she was watching Scooter walk to
the house and disappear inside. She felt
awful. She turned and faced Sammy, who
was still jabbering about buying shoes.
She wanted to be understanding and supportive. She didn’t ever want to make the same mistake
but Samantha was older and was being way too pushy for someone asking for a
favor.
“I’m sorry dear, but how many pairs of shoes do you have in
your closet?”
“But Mom…”
As she finished getting out of the car with all her packages,
she handed one of them to Sam. “Put
these away for me will you please?”
Samantha reluctantly took the bag and on her way to the side
door she opened it and peeked in. The
box on the inside said Manufactured
by: Rockbottom. Riverbed Sneakers Size
61/2
Sam let out a shriek and spun around to hug her mom.
A smile came to her mom’s face as she knew she had gotten at
least one thing right today.
zc
