SoapZone Community Message Board

The first part not so much...right before lunch, I went to "the corner" (what we locals call the intersection of the main N-S road and the main E-W road in our town and the location of most of the town's businesses) to get my sticker for my license plate renewed and discovered that at the end of June of this year, they closed our DMV permanently. Which hey, small local paper that comes out once every two weeks? This is exactly the kind of news you should be reporting (Dad was surprised to hear it as well). So I went to the DMV one town over...it's a BIG town with a very busy DMV and there's a long story about that as well but all I will say at this time is it was roughly a 40 minute wait and I was *grateful* because I've heard this DMV is horrible, and it kind of was, but the wait wasn't as long as I expected.

After the DMV, I hit Whole Foods where I grabbed some lunch from the hot bar and picked up a few grocery items only WF carries around here (no salt canned pinto beans, for example). From there, it's just a short distance to the popular--and delicious--Davis Bakery, so I decided to go get myself a birthday treat. While I was inside the small but busy bakery, there was an older gentleman wearing a t-shirt with a flag on it and sporting a "World's Greatest Grandpa" ballcap--let's call him "WGG" for the rest of this story. WGG was talking to everyone, telling jokes and generally making folks smile. I was in line behind him and we were chatting and I told him "I like you--you're fun!" and he grinned and thanked me. He said he was going just down the road to Miles Farmers Market next and I told him I was too. He complimented me on my taste in establishments and said maybe he'd see me there. As I was having my sweets run up--a maple cinnamon roll, a "mud bar" (like a 7 layer bar but with chocolate ganache) and a can of Hawaiian Punch just because I never see that in stores anymore,--the cashier asked me how my day was going and I told her great, it's my birthday. Because on September 9, I'm egotistical like that <g>.

When I left the store, I was surprised to see WGG just outside the door. He'd overheard me telling the cashier it was my birthday and asked if it really was my birthday. I said yes and he told me if he saw me at Miles Farmers Market, he'd buy me something to celebrate. I thought this was unlikely even if we *did* run into one another (MFM is pretty big) but I said OK, thanks. I had walked around the entire store and was just getting ready to check out when I bumped into WGG. He was also ready to check out and insisted I hand him something in my basket for him to pay for, as a birthday present. So I gave him the slice of carrot cake I'd picked out (usually I go for chocolate, and really, I'm not even a huge fan of cake, but this looked soooooo good) and he paid for it, had it bagged separately, handed it back to me and asked for a hug.

He might not be the world's greatest grandpa--or maybe he is?--but he is certainly one of the world's nicest people. What a lovely treat...especially because I will long be a little bitter about "my" DMV closing.