Matchbox Magic
“Can I open it when we get home, Dad?”
“Yea, sure.”
“Oh, boy! Vvvrrrroooommmm.”
A three-year-old boy. A blue Matchbox® car. That’s all it took to help that dad sail through a late night trip to Walgreens with his son.
I smiled through tears as I avoided eye contact with the Walgreens cashier who looked young enough to have a three year old of her own.
The breakup with the boyfriend. The fair weather friends. The gossip that, thanks to instant messaging and MySpace, gets around faster than a virus at daycare. And the cell phone is just one more phone in the house that doesn’t ring.
“I wish it was still that simple,” I told the young cashier. “A ninety-nine cent toy and you’re queen of the universe in their eyes.”
And all the owies can still be fixed with Bactine and a band aid.