This is Sheriff Peanut Butter Brickle. We’ve all been there. To a time and a place where the clock stood still. To a time and a place where you didn’t know who that was, but only that maybe you did. To a time and a place where someone waved at you. And you waved back.
Girl Person was at the grocery store this weekend.
Buying her usual round of matzo crackers and ice cream for me, Digby’s maple syrup and Boy Person’s favorite cereal. She threw some paper towels and cauliflower in her basket and she was out of there.
Girl Person isn’t the how do you do I’m doing great and life is fabulous and everything kind of girl. No. She’s the I’m outta here and I’m peopled out and I have two dogs to get home to and I want to make some vegetarian lasagna type of girl.
So when she so speedily pushed her shopping cart to the car, ready to throw everything in there and get home, she looked up to someone frantically waving at her. Her first reaction was to think she had to run, run, run. She had a vegetarian lasagna to make. Or she could turn that shopping cart around and pretend she needed more oregano. Anything.
Instead, she gathered up her saneness and tried to push away the crazy. And she mustered up all her courage to wave back. After all, that was the polite thing to do. This person must know her and not know she was rushing home to the cutest dogs in the world.
And obviously, this person didn’t know. Because as Girl Person said hello, the waver rushed by her faster than her self esteem drifting away. The waver was waving at someone else.
Well. That was a predicament. Girl Person was embarrassed and wasn’t even worrying about her lasagna now. She had to cook up some courage to make this look like she knew all along that wave wasn’t for her. She looked around. Had anyone else saw this situation? And right in front of her was another shopper rushing to get their peanut butter cake or something. And he thought she was waving at him! When he realized she wasn’t, the whole waving situation kept going and no one ever really found out who was being waved at. Was it a hello wave? A goodbye wave? The world will never know.
You see, saying hello and acknowledging others is one of the things we can do to make someone feel like they matter. That they aren’t invisible. Do we realize the power that acknowledgement has?
I know that when persons speak to me and Digby and don’t just walk on by, it makes our day. We want to be noticed. Dogs get frustrated when we can’t greet each other. Why aren’t people more like that? When did it become ok not to speak or say hello?
Girl Person realized that although that wave wasn’t meant for her…actually…maybe it was. Who has passed by you today? Don’t you wonder what you missed? That’s me. I’m waving at you.
–Sheriff Peanut Butter Brickle
I would definitely wave if I saw any of you. You might not know I was waving at you because you don’t know what I look like. But I would wave, just the same.
👋👋👋👋👋👋👋👋 ! Good morning to you all from Texas!!!!!!!