I walked up to the folding banquet table set up outside the school office to the line marked 12th Grade and the cute young girl smiles widely and asks, “And who is your student?” I instantly thought, “Clever girl.” It avoids the mom vs step mom vs bonus mom vs legal guardian vs court appointed protector. How PC. She kept smiling and I said, “Paul Smith, Paul Cameron Smith.” She corrected me and brightly said, “You mean Cameron. I know Cameron.” Then the three other adorable girls standing around her say, “We know Cameron.” And they all smile, teeth and freshly scrubbed skin without make up and super long hair pulled back in headbands and hair ties. All very pretty girls. All being super helpful. Then one girls says, “I love all your cookies. Cameron brings us your cookies and they are great.”
Then I am smiling.
It is a silly and very juvenile thing but it was so sweet and heart warming. One – that Cameron offers his friends (or people he hopes to persuade) with homemade cookies, my homemade cookies. Two – that these girls are impressed enough to pay me a compliment because I know that most of these girls rarely eat in public. They are like rare sub-Saharan gazelles that are never seen grazing or eating in the light of day, preferring to only eat in the protection of their families, away from observant eyes that might comment on the amount they eat and thereby infer anything about their weight. And lastly, it was evident that they all liked my son; they genuinely think he is a good guy. In life…in the long game of life…being the good guy is really very important. Being the good guy that all the cute, fresh, smiling girls like and with whom they will publicly eat homemade baked goods…..priceless.