Promises

Olivia, that loving little cherub, has a great new trick.  Whenever we're out in a crowd, usually when shopping, she likes to reach out toward people, grin, and say "HI!" in her cutest voice.  Absentmindedly, I'd been saying "Are you making buddies?  Is that your buddy?" whenever she'd do that.  So now she skips me as the middle man and just shouts "HI, BUDDIES!" at anyone she thinks will say "hi" back.  And that's where things get weird, because about half the time the person she's just greeted won't say hi back.  I've seen people stiffen and avert their eyes as if she'd just asked them for change.  It's cold, it's weird, and it's far more socially awkward than saying hello to a cheerful little girl.

How dead inside do you have to be to give this smile a cold shoulder?

So, I hereby promise to greet in kind any child who says hi to me.  I'm happy to teach kids by example that if they go out of their way to be friendly that their effort will be reciprocated.  Also, I promise to buy lemonade from any sidewalk lemonade stand.  I do not promise to drink it, but I promise to make my quarters jingle in the piggy banks of young entrepreneurs.  Yeah, it's nice to be nice, and it's even nicer to teach kids to be nice through our niceness.  God bless us everyone.