My Moral Obligation

School has started, and summer has finally started to roll to an end. For that I am grateful for one reason... You can't drive anywhere in the summer without seeing a kool-aid stand or candy stand that some little kids set up to make a few extra bucks. Heck, it doesn't have to be food. The neighborkids set up stands every year trying to sell anything they can get their hands on. Rocks, their brother or sister's toys, sugar cubes. This makes me laugh every time I drive by, but that's just the thing. I can't just drive by. I have a moral obligation to stop at any stand I see. It was not that long ago that I was a kid myself sitting behind that table, up to my elbows in sticky kool-aid and snow cone syrup. My best friend Cozette and I started out young, but each summer we branched out with our new "business" ideas. Kool-aid turned into snowcones, which we sold along with licorice, tootsie rolls, laffy taffy, and pretty much anything else you could think of. We sat there under our umbrella, just waiting for our usual customers. I remember counting the cash we made at the end of a long, hot, summer day... $75 later we were on top of the world. (It helps that we had Cozette's cute 'lil downsyndrome sister sitting out next to us... definately brings in the business.) The greatest day in a kid's life... which is what brings me to my moral obligation.

I was driving to my grandma's house one after this past summer. There was a little fold up table on the side of the road, sitting behind it a brother and sister. No juice, no cookies, no toys. Just paper. They had bee folding away, making a collection of paper airplanes to sell for 10 cents each. They were thrilled when I got out of my car and started walking towards them. They showed me all the different airplanes they had made. Their mom walked towards me, shaking her head apologetically, but I smiled and told her it was OK. I took the coolest-paper airplane-ever, leaving a few bucks in change that I scrambled out of my coin compartment in my car. They were thrilled. I walked away, shaking my head as I held the paper airplane between my fingers, remembering the greatest day of my childhood...

Parking at Wal-Mart during school-$157= A poor college student

Last Wednesday I woke up, got ready, and went on my way to school. That week I had been walking or getting a ride to school because I hadn't bought my parking sticker or got my bus pass yet; I planned on getting both that afternoon. I was running a little late, so I decided I would drive down a couple of blocks and park in the Wal-Mart parking lot as I ran across the street and went to my 50-minute Chemistry class. As I got out of my car at the end of the parking lot, my book bag in hand, a homeless man, holding a sign smirked at me and told me to have a good day. I tried not to think much of it, although it nagged at my brain for a minute as I walked across the street to UVU. Class was pretty much pointless that day so I was almost regretted going. I stopped at the bookstore and sold back one of my new books because I found a better deal somewhere else. I had just saved 60 bucks so I was gleaming as I walked across the street back to my car... which was not there. I remembered exactly where I had parked my car, right under... a security camera. I cannot describe the fury I felt. I knew it would be a lot of money to get my car back, but I was most distraught about having to walk up the huge hill to my apartment. One of the sole reasons I was so proud of myself for figuring out that I could park at Wal-Mart... to avoid that blasted hill. As I was almost to the top of the hill I decided to call Wal-Mart to see if they for sure had towed my car (because if that dang homeless man and stolen it... boy, I'm tellin ya...) I talked to a girl at Wal-Mart, she gave me a number for a towing company. I called the number and sure enough they didn't have my car. They said I got the wrong number because they didn't do business with Wal-Mart anymore. (The funny thing is I'd called that company before... but it was to tow someone else's car. Ha, I'll never do that again.. poor kid) So I called Wal-Mart back and got a different number, dispatch. Sure enough, they had towed my car. My friend drove me out to get it, which was an adventure because they gave me the wrong address the first time so I had to call back after we got lost. $157 later I had my car. As I got in my car I noticed that there were rocks under my front tires, but no one else's. The man didn't come over to help us move them and they were wedged under there so the only was to get them out was to drive over them (since the car behind me was only about 2" behind me). I drove over, well tried to... I didn't get enough "umph" and since my car is a stick-shift it tends to roll backwards... right into the car behind me. I got out in horror and me and my friend Rebekah stare at the two cars. The man working there came up and asked if everything was ok, and I proceeded to tell him what happened (implying that he-or whoever put the rocks under my tires was stupid) and he looked at the other car, said it looked fine. (It was an old car and you couldn't even tell I hit it) and then he looked at mine and he has the nerve to point out that my rear bumper was popping out- like I couldn't tell! Not only was I out $157, but now my bumper was popping out. (They did nothing about it). Don't worry, I learned my lesson. If you wake up late for school, DON'T MAKE THE EFFORT OF GOING! Ha. I'll show you Wal-Mart.