The Golden Slippers

With only three days to go before Thanksgiving, the spirit of the season hadn't caught up with Donna yet. Cars were packed into the parking lot of the local supermarket, and it was even worse inside the store. Shopping carts and last-minute shoppers jammed the aisles and packed the checkout lanes so that the shortest one still would take at least twenty minutes.

In front of Donna were two small children, a boy about five years old and his little sister. The boy wore a ragged coat. Enormously large, tattered tennis shoes jutted far out in front of his much-too-short jeans. He clutched several crumpled dollar bills in his grimy hands.

The girl's clothing resembled her brother's. Her head was a matted mass of curly hair. Reminders of an evening meal showed on her small face. She carried a beautiful pair of shiny, gold house slippers from Aisle 6.

When the children finally reached the checkout register, the girl carefully placed the shoes on the counter. She treated them as though they were a treasure. The clerk rang up the bill. "That will be $16.09," he said.

Tinny Christmas music blared from Donna's cell phone, the sign of an impending call. "Myron! It's so good to hear from you!" she said loudly, oblivious to the annoyed stares of shoppers around her. "No, I'm just out finishing the shopping for Thursday. I got the candied yams for Mother, but I couldn't find the stuffing you said your daughter likes. Are you sure Stove Top even makes jellybean flavor?"

The boy laid his crumpled dollars atop the stand while he searched his pockets. He finally came up with $7.12. "I guess we will have to put them back," he said. "We will come back some other time, maybe tomorrow."

With that statement, a soft sob broke from the little girl. "But we need to buy them now," she wept.

"What do you mean, Myron?" Donna shrieked into her phone. "It's Monday evening, and I've been standing here for an hour at the supermarket with a twenty-pound turkey in my hands! How can Edith and Merkel even think about going to his father's?!

"Look, you give them a call and tell them we are not going to let them ruin Thanksgiving for everyone and visit his father just because the old man is 83 and all alone. He made it this far, he can make it one more year!"

The little boy cast an odd glance at Donna before turning back to his sister. "We'll go home and work on it," he said gently. "Don't cry. We'll come back."

Now other customers were shuffling nervously from one foot to the other, and a few were departing for longer but seemingly cheerier checkout lanes. One or two looked desperate enough to abandon their carts and make a break for another supermarket.

"I am not being unreasonable!" Donna shouted. "If you were with Dominion Wireless you could make that call for free! I get two thousand WheneverIDarnWellWant minutes each month, plus free weekends and even health benefits."

With a start, Donna realized that no one was moving. Her eyes swiveled onto a sniveling pair of waifs standing in front of her who suddenly began to quake. She turned her attention onto the cashier.

"Will you get them out of here?" she demanded.

"We were just going," muttered the boy. He fumbled past Donna with his sister, then surreptitiously added the golden slippers to her pile of groceries before ducking around to the exit with his sister.

Ten minutes later, Donna emerged pushing a cart loaded with groceries, still talking on her cell phone with her brother Myron. There, poking out of a bag, were the golden slippers. While the little girl pretended to be hurt and fell against Donna's legs to distract her, the older brother pulled the slippers out of the cart.

"MY PHONE!" Donna shouted. She scrambled across the sidewalk and grabbed the phone. "Myron, hold on a minute." She stood up and looked at the two children critically. "Oh, it's you. What hideous slippers you bought."

"We thought Jesus would like them," the little girl said.

"Oh swell, Myron. It's a couple of religious freaks," Donna said into the phone before putting it back down again. "What do you mean by that?" she asked.

The boy answered. "Our mommy has thyroid cancer and is going to heaven soon. Daddy said she might be with Jesus before Thanksgiving."

The girl spoke. "My Sunday school teacher said the streets in heaven are shiny gold, just like these shoes. Won't mommy be beautiful walking on those streets to match these shoes?"

Donna rolled her eyes, and got back onto her phone to tell Myron how Child Welfare needed to do a better job keeping children off the streets. The little girl tearfully watched her scurry into the distance, until her brother showed her the twenty-pound turkey he had been able to snag too.

Somehow, they knew, it would be a happy Thanksgiving after all.

Moral: If we can't "hear you now," we must be deaf -- so just hang the freaking phone up already.

The Pit of Shame
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