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Written yesterday while watching Peter White's hair thin on a basketball court:

A small boy gave me a truck today.
As well as a bus.
Not full-sized vehicles, mind you.
These were just toys, which is no less considerate, I suppose.
When children give me things, I'm not sure what to do with them.
I understand I'm just supposed to accept the gesture.
I may not want the empty Q-tip box, but I'll take it for the sake of the child.
I've figured that much out.
Couple of high school girls are coming my way.
Play it cool, Paul.
Something I never learned while in high school.
Anyway, it's after the fact that confuses me.
Do I give it back to him as a sign of good faith?
"I know that you want the truck and bus more than me.
Besides, socially, I can't play with this stuff in public.
You keep them."
I could pass them on to someone else.
Ideally, the mother.
"You should be dealing with these instead of me."
Today, I just ended up holding the die-casts longer than I wanted to.
Kind of like after you've finished the bacon-wrapped scallop at the fancy dress party.
The guy with the tray is gone, and you're left holding the toothpick.
Wondering to yourself, "Now where am I going to lay this down?"
You end up holding it for several minutes, avoiding conversation, until you ultimately drop it inside a vase.
At least, that's what I would do.
21 months.
That's how old the little fella was.
I asked the mother.
Then I discussed the Terrible Twos and how to age young children
(turns out you use the same method as you would to age trees).
It felt meaningful.
Asking a stranger a question to find myself genuinely invested in the answer.
Listening, these days, seems unheard of (pun intended).
Then the mother had a window tumble open and hit her on the back of her head.
I didn't witness this.
Happened in the bathroom. The girls'.
Not my place.
This summer has had too many wasps.
With bees, at least you know where you stand.
Wasps dangle too-close when all you want to do is use your barbecue.
It's equivelant to a bully not letting you pass by in a hallway.
After the injury, I had to leave the coffee shop for a number of reasons.
One: Whenever someone is being treated for injury, I instantly feel in the way.
Someone's getting ice, another is getting a cloth.
I just feel as though I'd help everyone by leaving immediately.
Two: I felt uncomfortable because
a) I knew the window hit her on the noggin while she was on the toilet, and so, I began imagining her on the toilet and couldn't unimagine it.
b) (and I mention this gingerally) I could see up her skirt while she recuperated.
I'm not some sort of freak (I might be).
She was on a raised platform relative to me.
If I turned in her direction, that's what I saw.
So I had to leave.
Peter White interjected at this point of the story to ask what that was like (pervert).
I answered, "Shadowy. Always too shadowy."
But that was a joke.
Fact was, after speaking to her I liked her just a little bit.
Consequently, I didn't want to look up her skirt.
It felt great.
This one has a humane ending.