Friday morning and I approach the coffee cart in my building’s lobby. The coffee cart girl sees me coming and smiles.
“Good morning,” I say, hopefully brightly but probably, considering the early hour (at least an hour before the normal opening hours for my office), more likely mumbled and blurry.
“Good morning, sunshine!” she replies, her smile wide in her freckled face.
I laugh. “Sunshine? I like that.” I move around to the side where the row of brewed coffee [things] are arrayed. I get a medium cup and start to fill it with half decaf, half macadamia chocolate flavored coffee. “Actually, though, my last name is Moon, which is pretty much the exact opposite of sunshine.”
She’s not facing me; she’s setting out the trays of donuts, wiping down the counter. The cart has just officially opened for the day. She laughs, too. “So, then: goodnight, Moon?”
“Ha, ha! ‘Goodnight, Moon. Goodnight, cow jumping over the moon.'” I recite back at her, and she and I finish speaking the last sentence in unison.
“I loved that book. It was my favorite book when I was a little girl.”
“Mine, too,” I say, still smiling. “For obvious reasons.” I pull out my wallet and lay down some money for my coffee, and pluck a donut, a giant apple fritter, from the tray. “But I really wanted to get my hands on Harold’s purple crayon. Or run away with Max where the wild things were.”
“Ah, but do they have donuts?” she asked.
“Wild things don’t need donuts,” I said. Nor do they need friendly cute redheaded coffee cart girls, I thought as I wished her a good morning and walked away.