Accidental Observer

had a hankering for praline pecans & so, as one with a hankering for praline pecans will do, when the appropriate funds are available & one has the time to go praline pecan search, off to the grocery he went. the first store didn’t have exactly what he wanted & so back in the car & the search continued, but rather than pop from store to store, not finding the perfect can, like Goldilocks & the porridge, he settled for a bag of some fancy black pepper & cranberry pecan concoction, which while in reality were probably better for him, they just didn’t hit the mark, like the pralines which he’d envisioned in his head (and eventually in his stomach), only a half hour or so before the black pepper purchase. rewind to right before he went up to the register to buy the nuts & you find him walking down an aisle in which at the end, only a few paces away, there stood a little girl, a toddler, pushing one of those teeny lil’ carts which kids are able to push around beside their parents. now, her cart was pretty damn full & the little girl had somehow got it teetering, so now at this point she is struggling to keep the cart from completely falling over & the squealing scream/cry that only a little girl can muster, starts to emit from her mouth simultaneously with a reddening of the face, which is the pre-balling cry period that children seem to have. our praline-seeker, he sees the child screaming & ponders the scenario, that if her ran to help the child, the parent might not appreciate a stranger in the midst of their most precious, while on the other hand, it’s perfectly possible that she will let the cart fall over & cause her some kind of pain---either way, the child is not the responsibility of the praline-seeker, so he simply watches the event unfold as he continues down the aisle in her direction at a casual walking pace. within seconds, the father & his even younger daughter (being dragged by her arm round the corner of the other aisle) come to help out the struggling child & suddenly her screaming stops, with all the pre-balling cry reddening disappearing, as if nothing had happened--- the father looks up, smiling a stressed out smile at the praline-seeker and gets down to the level of his child, brushing hair out of her face & telling her it’s going to be alright. as all three of them move on round the corner to the next aisle, our praline- seeker stops & decides on the black pepper & cranberries.