"Free Snowflakes and 25 cent toys!"

The night was young, and I had nothing to do.

I had finished my homework for that night earlier in the day, and was unwilling to get a head start on anything else. When suddenly, I got a phone call from Julia!

Julia:"What are you doing right now!?!"

Me:"Nothing. Do you need something?"

"Yes," she says. And then proceeds to tell me all about tow truck guy Greg who is three days behind in his towing of Margaret's (Julia's sister that now lives in France) car.
Julia had to move the dead Mini Cooper so that tow truck Greg could tow it.... and I was her last option. I told her I would do my best. But we all know I'm not very strong.

She picked me up, and told me all about her crazy stressful day. It stressed me out just hearing about it. And then we arrived at the scene...
We wanted to try and start the Mini ourselves. Did you know that Prius' batteries are at the bottom of the trunk? I'll never understand why this is. But we began to move all the things from Julia's trunk (which included many of Margaret's leftovers, as well as some remnants of our crazy Harvest Moon celebration). We were in a frenzy... Finally, everything was moved to the back seat of the car. So we waited. And waited. And waited.

Tow truck Greg never showed up.

But as we sat there, a small miracle came along just to cheer up our day. From across the street, we heard the yells of a small girl.

Free Snowflakes and 25 cent toys!!Free Snowflakes and 25 cent toys!!Free Snowflakes and 25 cent toys!!Free Snowflakes and 25 cent toys!!Free Snowflakes and 25 cent toys!!Free Snowflakes and 25 cent toys!!Free Snowflakes and 25 cent toys!!Free Snowflakes and 25 cent toys!!

This went on for quite some time. Until I couldn't take it anymore. We had to meet this girl.

"Do you have 25 cents?" I asked Julia. My thinking was, tow truck man was never going to show up. It was getting dark and cold. We weren't getting any less stressed by just sitting there, so why not cheer up the little girl's night.
She was sitting at the edge of her drive way on the darkened street. We approached.

She sold Julia a green beaded ring with a flower. I got a free snowflake. We chatted for a good 20 minutes with her. Maybe more.
Her name was Bella. And she's six. She was earning money to buy her brother a Wii game for his birthday. She was happy to have people stop and buy her last toys. Her brothers came running out when we arrived. One older, one younger. One wearing pants, the other not. Her parents even came out to say hi. It was perfect.

It's so easy to get angry at the Tow Truck Gregs of the world. But when I think about last night, I'm grateful to say, I won't remember the frustration of Tow Truck Greg... I'll chose to remember Bella.