In the coffee shop

In the coffee shop waiting for my morning coffee, a mum walks in with her child. Mum orders. The kid looks at me, looking around at my wheelchair. I smile and wave.

Kid: “Why do you move funny? Are you ill?”

Mum heard. She took inhales, ready to apologise.

Me: “Well I suppose technically speaking it’s an illness,” pondering this myself for a second.

The kid obviously can’t understand me.

Kid: “Have you got a cold?”

Mum turns around ready to explain to her son that I haven’t got a cold, in case I might have felt upset by this.

Me: “I have five!” I figured if I said five he would be less scared of getting one cold…

Kid: “Oh dear! You should come to our house and eat eight sausages!”

Apparently that’s the magic number of sausages to cure five colds.

I chuckle.

Mum asked if I was ok with her son asking me questions, I, of course, say, “It’s brilliant. I like when people ask me questions. If you don’t ask you don’t learn.” Mum tells me how her son is so talkative with loads of energy and how everything is new to him. I can tell as he’s forgotten about me and is now fascinated by the old Space Invaders game which is now a coffee table, his brain jumping from one thing to the next.

Mum turns back to the counter.

Kid jumps back in front of me so quickly he might be a munchkin. With an inquisitive face and a cute high pitched voice he asks, “Why do you sound like a seal?”

I roar with laughter! I’m thoroughly enjoying this conversation. I turn around to everyone to ask if anyone heard that amazing sentence. The kid is bemused. I’m explaining to everyone what he just said, sounding even more like a seal now as I’m laughing so much. Mum has that ‘Oh God I can’t believe that came out my kid’s mouth’ look while smiling. She makes sure again that I’m ok with her son talking to me, probably considering people might not take kindly to being told they sound like a seal. Still laughing I say, “No worries, I think I sound like Scooby-Doo”, which puts the mum at ease. She recognised me from around town. Talks about how kids don’t have a filter and how it’s refreshing that someone just asks what they want to know without any weirdness or fear of offending anyone. Like I said before, if you don’t ask you don’t learn.

I ask the kid how old he is. “Four,” he says with a grin. What a fantastic age!

The mum congratulates me as I’m turning 30 this week. In my head I thought, is that really something to be congratulated on? I think the four-year-old is having way more fun here.

As my new-found friend is leaving with his mum he says, “Goodbye. Hope you get better soon.”

So cute! Unfortunately, he doesn’t know yet that there’s no cure for ‘five colds’ — unless the eight sausages theory works…???