Gonna Fly Now

Beverage: Starbucks gande skinny vanilla latte

Toast: Here's to the kindness of strangers!

I was regretting the decision to go through the drive through at Starbucks again. The line was slow, the traffic on the street was backed up to the start of the hill. In cases like that it usually takes me a full light change to merge back in. It was a bad choice to come here. It was late and this would make me later. 

But now I was on deck and the person in the car in front of me reached out of the window up pay. 

I noticed because her bracelet was too tight and it pinched her wrist, creating the appearance of a baby doll arm. I stirred from my fog and paid a little more attention. 

I could see her face in her rear view now. Blonde, pleasant enough looking if in a reserved, square sort of way. Now she's beaming and laughing with the cashier, sharing some joke. I agree with Helen Gurley Brown: happy girls are pretty girls. Doll Fist looks good as she passes a credit card over and the two yuck it up some more. She was a tiny happy animated portrait in the car rear view amid the predawn blackness. I wonder idly that they are able to enjoy the brief transaction so well. 

Then she's off.

I pull in and the cashier has my coffee waiting for me. "Grande skinny vanilla latte?"Yup. I have my cash out and am trying to give it to her to hurry this along. But she is stubbornly refusing to take it.

"You're all set- the woman in front of you paid for you."

Oh ko? Now I'm laughing like my predecessor had been. "That's great" I declare "Can I pay for the person in back of me?" Sure you can! So I do and am off, laughing with the cashier girl.

As I go I wonder how far back the events had started and how far forward me they would continue. Maybe Doll Fist started it, but I don't think so. This was a parade of mild generosity that someone started and someone else would end. I guess only the cashier would know the whole story. Seems like corny crap, but it was nice move.