I swung by Dollar General yesterday afternoon to pick up some odds and ends.
While I was standing in the discount DVD aisle, a little boy about five years old ran up to me clutching two stuffed horses.
He was galloping. The horses were pretend galloping and pretend neighing.
I was considering purchasing a $4 As Good As It Gets DVD.
The child nuzzled me. The horses in his hands nuzzled me.
I put down the DVD. Wondered what Jack Nicholson was up to lately. Turned my attention to the kid at my waist; the brown horses neighing at my enormously pregnant stomach.
“You like my horses?” He asked.
“They’re very beautiful,” I said, bending down to meet him.”You take good care of them.”
“They’re race horses,” he replied.
“They look very fast,” I said.
“They need a bath.”
“They look perfectly clean to me.”
“Oh no, they stink like dirty horses,” he said turning his attention to the DVD display in front of us. I scanned the store for his parents. The only adults I could see were two presumably homeless men buying generic cola at the checkout counter.
“You buyin’ a movie?” He asked.
“Was thinking about it. You got any suggestions?”
He thought about it for a minute and then wildly galloped his horses in the air.
“I think you should buy a horse for your son,” he said.
I looked around for sign of another child. Surely, this kid had seen another boy in the store and assumed he belonged to me.
There were no other kids in the store.
Just me. The boy. The clerk. Two horses and two bums.
I wasn’t sure how to address his comment.
Technically I don’t have a son. Not yet anyway. I mean … well … I do, but he’s not exactly running around the house begging for toy horses even though lately some of his kicks and jabs make me think he’s ready to come out and play.
I looked at the boy suspiciously.
Where are your parents, dude?
I was in a hurry and in no position to explain pregnancy to a five-year-old.
So I said, “I don’t have a son.”
The boy tilted his head to the side. Nudged my stomach with one horse.
“You will soon,” he said, grinning.
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True story. It’s rekindled my belief in animal spirit guides.