JUST A LITTLE INCIDENT

Here is Benjamin all safe and happy. Only the day before he had a little incident that caused all his eight strings of yellow yarns turned completely white. The incident took place as we walked across the street with Benjamin tucked in my purse. I did not realize that I had dropped Benjamin until we got to the fairground. As we hurried up, re-tracing our steps to the parking lot where we parked our pick-up truck, I spotted Benjamin laying face down in the middle of the busy 4-lane road (photos below). Luckily the traffic lights were red and my husband was able to safely ran out and retrieved Benjamin. My husband jokingly said that I should give Benjamin CPR. Then my husband started laughing at how distraught I looked while trying to look for a silly beanie baby. I actually felt as if I was a bad mother who did not take good care of her child.

As we frantically re-traced our steps, we saw a family of four, Mom, Dad and two cute little boys, all smiling as they walked towards the fairground. I said to my husband that the mother probably picked up Benjamin and put him in her big shoulder bag. The little boys were happy that they found a cute little toy. I was so upset at these people that they took something that did not belong to them. After we found Benjamin in the middle of the road, I felt so guilty for wrongfully accusing the family without any concrete evidence. How often we blamed others for our mistakes or conveniently accused someone (or a group of people based on their race or most recent, social class just like when the Vietnamese Communist labeled upper-class people as enemy of the working class) for misfortune or failure that was created by own incompetence? I learned a valuable lesson that I should try to remember not to jump to conclusion or make false accusations without checking all the facts.

Benjamin suffered a few tire marks (photo below) but he had a good bath in the washer. No major damage to his appearance. He is clean and fresh like a daisy.