Cause I Like My Calories In Whipcream Form

I’m going to set myself up for failure by attempting to write a blog a day for 10 days.

Here’s the thing.

I am lame.  I like to do lame things that make me feel good.  One of those things is do something nice for people randomly and out of the blue when I feel like they did something cool.

If I was rich, I would love to be the kind of person who was like
“You are awesome.  Here’s a new car.” 

But I am not, so it usually looks like this
“You are awesome.  Here’s a coffee/card/mug/baking”.

It’s almost as good as a new car.

And the truth is that it probably makes me more happy than the person(s) that I give it to, because for whatever reason it makes me all warm and fuzzy to point out to people that they rock.  So you can think I’m really nice, but I’m mostly still being a little selfish.

I can spend a LOT of time focusing on why people suck.  And I think that our society is quick to write letters of complaint about employees who are incompetent or speak to the manager when we are mad about the service, but when do we ever do the opposite – speak up when someone does something great?  Hardly ever.  At least I don’t.

So I TRY to go out of my way and tell people that they are amazing that day.  I say try because it was a conscious choice to try and do this a few years ago and while it’s becoming habit, I’m not totally there yet.  But I’m working on it.

So for the next while until Christmas, my goal is to find one person doing something awesome every day, and do something kinda cool back.

And then bore you with the details.

________________

This brings be to today.  I went into the city to grab a few things with Monster while the other 2 were at school.  On our way in, we stopped for a Skinny Peppermint Mocha with Whip (yes, I know.  Shut up.) and a Kid’s Hot Chocolate.

This particular coffee shop is right next to a very large police station and is frequented by cops.  So while we were enjoying our drinks, a handful of Officers came in for a meeting and Monster started with the questions/random observations.

“those policemans have guns. “


“those policemans have patches like army mans”


“those policemans must be ALL DONE catching robbers today.  Did you know robbers take money from banks?  Then policemans shoot them.  with their guns.  those policemans have guns to shoot robbers.  who drives the police car?  police cars go FAST to catch robbers.”

Okay, so he might be SLIGHTLY misguided in his understanding necessary force… (I blame the Lego Advent Calender)

No, I am not sure why the Lego Advent Calender has a cops and robbers scene…

but while we sat, I got to answer some questions.  We got to have a talk, mommy to 4 year old, about good guys and bad guys.  We got to talk about why we need police officers.

Most importantly, we got to make clear that police officers are the good guys.

And in many, many places in this world, we wouldn’t get to be so black and white.
If we lived in a place of corruption, if we lived in a fear-driven society, if we lived in so very many other places, this might have been an entirely different conversation.

But instead, in that little coffee shop while Monster stared across the room and the police officers smiled back at him, he felt safe.  

And that made me feel grateful for my country and for those police officers.

I made some silly choices when I was younger that meant I felt nervous and annoyed when I saw cops for a good while.  Even years later there’s that habit of feeling like you have something to hide that takes longer than it should to shake.  I realized today that the feeling is gone.  And I want my child to know he never has to feel that way.

Mostly, I want all my kids to understand as soon as they are able that feeling safe is a gift given to us not only by Soldiers like their dad, but by Police Officers doing their job right where we live, too.  Those things aren’t just a given, they are a blessing of where they were born and the rights they have been given in this country.  

So on our way out of that coffee shop we picked up a Starbucks card for each officer and Monster gave them out, with a smile and a Merry Christmas.


Christmas Blessing #1 – Coffee for the Good Guys

Comments

comments