The New Year, In Two Moments
Eli 19.5 returned to Ann Arbor and the television in his house was broken. It was of unknown ownership, six years old, and based on the sequence of flashing red lights when powered on, had sustained either a backlight or power supply failure.
When he was younger, I'd gotten him a 43" Samsung LCD for his basement area, and it still worked, so we agreed to meet in Lansing halfway. At our favorite, magical exit: 101.
I will call this exit The Wonderful 101 forever more, because it is the easiest, most perfect exit, and it leads to gas and food within a hundred yards of the interstate. It's exactly halfway to Ann Arbor.
It's also exactly halfway to Detroit (the rink where he had goalie lessons, at least). I believe it is halfway to every place on Earth, including Taiwan.
In this case, we agreed to meet in the Wendy's parking lot, where we had eaten many a lunch on the way to the rink.
While I was waiting for him, I was awed by the staggering line in the drive-through lane. Over a dozen cars, and they weren't moving. Then I saw an enormous red truck pull up at the end of the line.
Inside the truck was a man shoveling a handful of fries into his mouth.
Apparently, he had already been through the drive through, and was now willing to wait fifteen minutes to go right through it again.
That's commitment.
That was Moment #1.
Moment #2 was today on my way back from the store. School had just let out, and I stopped to let some children cross the street. They were all with their parents, and while most hurried along, there was one who was considerably more interesting.
She decided that it was critically important to step on the broad white stripes that crossed the street and nothing in-between, which required her to invent a stride that would have received enthusiastic approval from The Ministry of Silly Walks.
Her mother was trying to hurry her along, but she was resolute, and she touched every white stripe and nothing more.
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