The Elderberries by Corey Pandolph and Phil Frank and Joe Troise for February 06, 2016
Transcript:
Boy: Dad! Girl: Mommy! Woman: Oh, thank God you kids are all right! Boy: The Professor took care of us! Woman: Um... thank you. I hope you're an employee here. Girl: Say "yes." Professor: Er, yes! Now 22 years of guiding planetarium tours! Without incident! Or jail time!
Back when I had a job and a litle extra money I’d buy super balls and other little toys out of the quarter machines at the department store and gave them out to the children at my church. One Sunday I had a few toys leftover and afterward I caught the bus downtown to meet up with some friends. On the bus there were a couple kids and I thought they might like a couple of the toys I had left over. Instead of offering the toys to the kids directly I asked the parents if it would be alright if I gave them a toy. The parents of the first girl appreciated the fact that I asked them before offering their daughter a toy and they told their daughter to go ahead. The mother of the second child, a boy, just glared at me like she was trying to figure out what kind of psycho I was to even think of approaching her son and then refused to let me offer him a toy.
When I transfered buses, the son and mother ended up boarding the same bus, and then a few blocks later when I got off at the public building where I was meeting my friends they got off too, in fact we ended up going into the same building and she was glaring at me the whole time. When she stopped at the service desk to talk to someone there I wasn’t sure if she was getting information, or telling them that I was some kind of stalker. Since I already knew where I was meeting my friends I didn’t bother to stop at the desk and just walked on to my meeting. I never saw the woman or her son again, but I can’t help but wonder if she ever got over her fear of strangers.