My Precious

I don't know what it is, but no matter what I do, random strangers LOVE to talk to me.

I also don't know why I always engage them back. Fully.

Today, I'm glad I did.

I was walking out of a deli and had just purchased a GIANT chocolate chip cookie (CCC).  If you don't know me, I LOVE CCCs. They are my guilty pleasure, and I would probably eat them morning, noon, and night if I didn't care about weighing more than 300 lbs...

A Picture of Darron When stanFUrd Loses.

To add to my normal CCC desire...I recently have just come off a fairly restrictive cleanse (which should be another blog in itself).  And by "recently," I mean I came off of it TODAY.  And I shit you not, as I was paying for my CCC, I literally thought to myself in a Gollum voice as the cashier STUPIDLY asked if I needed a bag before I devoured the thing: My PRECIOUSSSSSSSS.  How I've missed you. Yessssssssss. My PRECIOUSSSSSSSS. 


So, um yeah.  I was looking forward to eating this cookie.

Anyway, as I started to rip off my first delicious morsel in weeks, but before I could get a chunk ripped off and into my gluttonous mouth, a homeless man walks up to me and asks for money.  He was filthy and smelled like toxic garbage.  His deep, dark skin was cracked, and his eyes didn't have whites.  They were stressed, and they were red.  But they were still kind.

I didn't have anything smaller than a $20 in my pocket (middle class, first world problem) so I said:  "I don't have any that I can give you...but..." and I can't believe I was about to give up my precious, "...do you want my cookie?"

And while I waited for him to take it out of my hand, he glances at it and then looks back up at me and says, "Man, I can't take your cookie."

I figure this might be the end of most conversations with a homeless person...but I couldn't believe he didn't want it!  I mean, who wouldn't want a CCC!!??!!

So...I thought I would offer again, "No really.  You can have it."

Again, he refuses, "I won't take your cookie."

He wasn't being rude.  He wasn't doing the "Give me money or nothing" routine.  I could tell...something about him was being VERY polite.  And he kept glancing at the CCC.

So I tried a different tactic, "Do you want half?"

"Sure.  That sounds good.  I'll split it with you."

And as I broke it in two, and handed over part of my first chocolate chip cookie in weeks, we shared a moment as we both bit into the CCC and silently chewed.

We made eye contact..nodded our heads...and both continued walking on our ways.

I had no idea how precious CCCs could actually be.