Wednesday, November 18, 2009

have any lights to donate?

Don't you love it when crack addicts give you advice to watch out for crack addicts?

Outside the AGO this evening, and a man drove up on his bike with a plastic basin of lights attached to the front of the bike.
The basin was glowing with multiple colours of flashing lights.
"have any lights to donate?" the man said,
I realized I was just about to get on my own bike but hadn't put my bike lights on.
"no, sorry, but thanks for reminding me"
"don't leave your bike lights on, you wouldn't leave your bike unlocked, you never know when a crack addict is going to come across it and think 'there's twenty bucks'... how about some blues" and the man started playing the accordion, he was rather good and started snapping along.
"thank you"
"do you have any money?, take me to dinner?"
"no, sorry i don't have any money"
"take me to dinner?"
I giggled "sure" I don't know what I expected his response to be but...
"seriously? I'll give you my number, if you are worried"
"oh...um.. I was... joking? thank you, have a great day" at this point there was a constant stream of pedestrians hollering to get past our two bikes.
"oh, I wasn't, you know there is no such thing as a bad day, just bad moments, when someone says 'have a great day' they, there is no such thing as a bad day, all days are great, only moments are bad, and people with bad attitudes hold on to those moments for the entire day."
"wow, that is really insightful"
"it's true there are no bad days, so when people say have a great day..." people continue to try to get past our two bike muttering or yelling "excuse me"
"thank you very much, have a good night"
"thank you"

As I road home I thought about how many great things came out of that conversation. I wish i had had the courage to sit and talk with him longer.

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