The older couple parked and strolled and sat and watched for a couple of hours or so.
Snow was falling, shepherds were approaching, Frosty was waving, the band was playing, and the mayor was speaking.
It was The Annual Christmas Parade, the official start to the hap-happiest time of the year.
Not so happy, more hilarious really, was when the older couple attempted to rise from the cold concrete curb which he had suggested earlier would afford them the best view of all that would pass by.
She had demurred, pointing out how far down the curb was, mentioning their age and accompanying frailties, to which he laughed and she, loving him, took his proffered hand and down they gingerly went, settling in place on their quite narrow – and cold, and hard – perch.
She was right. The antics – with thankfully fellow parade-watchers assisting – enabling the older couple to be on their way again were quite funny.
As they strolled hand-in-hand back through the falling snow, she said “We sat down on that curb like we were 25 years old, behaved during the parade like we were 10, and got up as if we were 85!”
At the exact moment upon returning to their car, a couple who had parked next to them also arrived, also leaving. Said the male half of the strangers, “Did you lose a wallet? I found it there on the ground and turned it in to the police.”
Yes, he had lost his wallet.
He thanked the kind strangers and the older couple drove off in search of a police officer of which there were several controlling traffic. However, everyone else seemed to be leaving at the same time so, making little progress by car, he began walking toward flashing blue lights.
The problem was the flashing blue lights were moving too. In the same direction as – away from and faster than – the older fellow in search of his wallet.
Eventually he saw a patrol car coming down the street and he flagged it down, and explained what had happened. The female officer radioed the police station, then asked if he had any weapons. He didn’t expect a pocket knife which he mentioned to the officer and, since he didn’t know where the police station was, she came around to the passenger side of the cruiser and opened the back door where he sat.
Fortunately, the parade was over, Frosty and friends were being deflated, so the older fellow’s visage in the prisoner portion of the police car went – for the most part – unnoticed.
Even more fortunately, his wallet was at the police station, all contents intact: credit card, driver’s license, money, and prized grandson’s kindergarten photo.
And so it was that the exact moment the older couple had returned to their car – having extricated themselves from the curb from which cold, hard curb they had for considerable time watched the Christmas parade, the snow falling, shepherds approaching, Frosty waving, band playing, mayor speaking – another couple, total strangers, had appeared with what would be good news of great joy to all men, or at least to all those who read this story, and certainly to the older fellow who’d lost his wallet and got to ride in the back seat of a police car.
It truly is the hap-happiest time of the year.
