Disclaimer: Today’s
post will not be witty, deep, or compelling.
You all know that Lara is a beautiful, intelligent, and inspiring
woman. And although I am none of those
things, I do get to be married to her and that’s a totally awesome thing to be
able to say. Yeah – this is a
cameo. It’s Tom and this here is a
“guest post”.
So I’m not good at this.
If you know me you know I’m a man of few words, and sadly even fewer
thoughts. But I’m still going to give
this my best shot. Lara had a hard day
today – nothing catastrophic, but one of those days where, you know… everything
just takes longer that it was supposed to, the Salvation Army didn’t have the right
shade of blue pants to make a homemade Super Mario costume, there was a lot of
driving kids around, and all you want to do is not write about it. So I’m taking over. Just for today, though, so don’t start
writing in.
I could count this gesture of “guest posting” as my act of
kindness, but since I didn't even know that Lara would need this sweet relief (of which
I’ve so gallantly offered), my dad and I had already chipped in with our own #AdamsActs today. We pretty much saved the
world. We gave away 2 cups of hot
chocolate that we got for free and didn’t even want and also threw away 1
plastic grocery bag.
Here’s how it all when down.
My dad and I have been trying to spend more time with each other. This past year, along with this month, have
been potent reminders that you just don’t know, well anything. I’m not talking about my aforementioned lack
of original thoughts. I’m talking about
how we don’t know what our circumstances will be tomorrow. We don’t know if we’ll be healthy, if we’ll
be safe, or if we’ll suddenly be forced to miss someone we love because they’re
gone.
So my dad and I have decided to hang out more, eat together,
and talk about how life is going. Today,
he stopped by MCC (where I work) for lunch.
We put both generations of our wisdom together and chose a community
college’s version of “Philly-style pizza”.
Picture a regular piece of cheese pizza lovingly sprinkled with shreds
of Steak-Umm. Then, and this is what
gives it the authentic Philly feel – there’s a Kraft single melted on top to
pull it all together. We felt like we
were on South Street . Then, because I was with my dad we had to
chase our heartburn with coffee. We sat
back down at our table with our coffee, when the woman working at the stand
yelled, “Your 2 hot chocolates are ready!”
We stopped talking. “She’s
looking right at me. ”,
he said to me in a low voice, barely moving his lips. We both froze - like in Jurassic Park island of Jurassic
The second act of kindness we bestowed upon the students of MCC
was to pick up a plastic grocery bag and throw it out. This opportunity presented itself after this
kid, sitting within arm’s reach of the trash can, reached out and tried to
throw it in. The dude didn’t even ball
it up first. What? You know how far you can throw an un-balled-up
plastic bag? I’ll tell you. Approximately 1 inch. So after the young man’s 1 inch toss didn’t
do the job, he watched it slowly float and land beside the trash can. Then, he just left it there. Here’s my dad gettin’ the job done.
Lara always finishes her posts with an amazing
one-liner. I have to tell you that I’ve
been staring at the screen for at least 12 minutes trying to come up with one,
but it’s not going to happen. So, I’m
out.
*drops mic