Thanks to a stranger

It's nice to have a happy ending, even if it's over something relatively unimportant.

Today we went to the California State Fair. Dude was there with his girlfriend when Squeeze and I arrived, and we met them for a snack before going our separate ways - they headed off to the rides and we strolled around for hours, looking at whatever caught our attention.

It was an absolutely beautiful day. It's rare to have such good weather for the last weekend of the fair - usually Labor Day weekend is uncomfortably hot, but today it was clear and sunny, with the temperature only reaching the mid 80's.

Back when I was growing up in the desert, the fair came in April, but the heat was already miserable. That didn't stop me from trying to ride everything there was to ride while my folks browsed all the exhibits and admired the farm equipment, which I thought was the most boring thing in the world to do. Why would anyone choose to do anything but ride the rides?

Now that I'm older, I'm the one looking at all the exhibits and my kids are out riding the rides, wondering how I could possibly be enjoying myself. Sigh.

We had just decided that we'd had enough and were going to head back home early, with a brief detour to the Kettle Korn seller, which I absolutely must visit before leaving the fair, when Squeeze pulled out his phone to answer a call. He looked extremely confused for a moment, then replied to the person on the other end, "You must have my son's phone. Where are you? We'll come pick it up."

He spent a few frustrated minutes trying to understand where to go, listening through the chaos surrounding us and the noise on the other end. He couldn't quite catch the name of the ride that the finder was describing, but thought that he understood enough to figure it out once we reached the Midway.

I temporarily gave up my search for sweet salty goodness and he quickly led the way through the exposition to the midway on the other side of the fair. We stopped where he thought we should be and he called the finder back. More bad communication ensued, and the information that got through led Squeeze to believe that the finder was near the kid's rides, which were back on the other side of the fairgrounds.

My feet were complaining pretty badly by this time, but we hot-footed it over there, hurrying because this kind stranger was waiting to return our son's phone to us, and we didn't want him to have to wait. Once we arrived, more footsore than ever, we tried calling again, but got no answer. I sent a text and we limped around, searching for a person matching the description we'd been given.

Nothing.

We wandered some more, wondering if we'd have to backtrack to the adult rides again, when we got another phone call. It was Dude. He had retrieved his phone from the mysterious stranger.

I suppose the guy had been calling all the recent contacts on the phone in the hope of finding someone who could retrieve it, and got through to Dude's girlfriend who, happily, was with Dude and, unlike Squeeze and I, actually understood what ride the finder was describing when told where to meet up.

Why hadn't we though to call her? Argh! We stared at each other for a moment as accusations failed to fly through the air. What would be the point? We had both been caught up in the moment.

We never did get to meet the person who found the phone, but I would like to state here that I am very thankful to the guy in the brown Foster Farms t-shirt. It was through his patient good-nature and honesty that my son was able to reunite with his missing phone. It was really nice to see, or at least hear, the better side of human nature.


Despite being very tired, I felt compelled to go back to where we got the first phone call so I could find the Kettle Korn booth and purchase a bag to take home. Once there, Squeeze was shattered to discover that the ride Mr. Brown-Foster-Farms-Shirt had been describing was not very far from said booth. He apologized for dragging me across the fair (twice), which was nice, but unnecessary since neither of us had known any better.

Still, perhaps he'll think twice next time before coming between a girl and her snack obsession of choice.