This. I’m not afraid of the Trump voters, this election cycle. Nor the Russians. I’m afraid of the people in my own party who would rather live with Trump and Pence, even now, than accept a woman having power over them. I’m afraid of Democratic candidates who will sulk if they lose, instead of changing momentum and supporting the nominee with everything they’ve got.
imagine holt and kevin babysitting for jake and amy so the couple can go out to enjoy their first work-free, child-free evening on the town since their six-month-old baby girl was born. It’s only gonna be for an hour or so, so they can get dinner and just chill without missing their baby too much. normal, right?
but then jake gets a tip from one of his sources that a drug dealer he’s been tracking for months is gonna be doing a deal in central park sometime that night…and he tells Amy who promptly says, “Yeah, let’s get this son of a bitch!”
There’s a pause. They both miss their little girl already, but because the guy is a major dealer with info on some of the city’s biggest, baddest drug runners, Jake calls Holt and explains the situation, and then sheepishly asks if he and Kevin could watch the baby just a little longer.
Camera pans to Holt. He’s holding the phone while in the next room over Kevin struggles to change a screaming baby’s diaper (he had the first one on backwards). There are toys and snacks and sippie cups strewn about the living room floor. But the Real Crisis: Cheddar has chewed up the baby’s teddy bear and she won’t stop crying without it. But because Holt loves his weird son and daughter-in-law (and because he loves justice, too) he agrees. Besides, he isn’t ready to admit that he’s been bested by an infant.
While Jake and Amy stake out their guy, Holt and Kevin try EVERYTHING to calm her down without Beary. Music, bouncing, a bottle, a pacifier (“It’s called a PACIFIER, Raymond, why won’t it PACIFY!?”) but nothing works. So, they do what all cops do and they call in backup.
First is Terry. He’s like, Superdad. So he comes over with a bunch of Cagney, Lacey, and Ava’s old toys in hopes of finding a replacement for Beary. But all are vehemently rejected, thrown to the ground, and the crying continues. Terry calls in Charles, who says he’ll bring over a soothing homemade formula that is SURE to put the baby to sleep. The baby takes two sips. The crying stops for a moment. But then she drops the bottle, projectile vomits on Charles and then starts crying all over again.
Charles calls Gina. Gina has a baby! She’ll know what to do! Gina comes over with Iggy’s old swaddling blankets and a noise machine she never used. She wraps the baby up and turns on a setting called Ocean Waves. But now it just sounds like the baby is crying at the beach.
Gina calls Rosa. “Can you come over and like, scare the baby into sleeping?” Rosa comes over. She picks up the baby, and she immediately calms down. The squad stares at them in awe.
“How on Earth did you manage that?” Holt asks, incredulous.
“You’re all freaking out, babies can sense crap like that.” Rosa sits down beside Holt on the couch and passes the sleeping infant over to him. She snuggles into his chest and curls her tiny arms around his bicep.
When Jake and Amy come to pick up their daughter after busting the perp and four of his men, they find the whole squad asleep in Holt and Kevin’s living room amid a mess of toys, blankets, stuffing from the late Beary, and a sound machine still playing Ocean Waves. Their baby is asleep on one of Holt’s shoulders, and Kevin is snoring on the other. Charles fell asleep at the kitchen table. Terry, on the floor, with Rosa and Gina passed out on either side of him.
Jake makes a mental note to buy everybody a round of drinks next time they’re at the bar as he takes Amy’s hand, and for a minute, they just smile. This, Jake realizes, is what it means to be part of a family.
I’m going through my Patreon pre-order and… British Addresses are just the best.
I can send something to “SuchAndSuch House”, which is a place so locally famous that it doesn’t need a street number. The goddam White House has a street number.
Also there’s been several “Mews”. What the hell is a “Mews”? Some kind of landscape feature? Something you put in in the 1100′s to deal with the peasantry? Why are they all named after random dudes?
Your addresses are all charming as shit but I have absoultely no idea what your local designations me and its delightfully baffling.
Americans, please confirm/deny that even out in rural areas, you can’t have a house which has a property name instead of a street number. This is SUPER common with out of town properties (sometimes farms, sometimes just properties with lots of land because the owners are rich) in Australia, because when you’re living on multiple hectares, why the crap would you try to deal with street numbers?
Yeah no, every single place has a street address. Even hundred-acre farmland. In my experience, the street address tends to be based on the location of the mailbox
My dad owned land out in the middle of nowhere and every parcel had its own address
Every house having a street address is relatively recent (< 30 years ago) though. I believe some of it has to do with Enhanced-9-1-1 system. I know someone whose post address changed twice this way, although they didn’t move. It was something like a general “Rural Drive #3”, then a house number & street, then a different house number but same street.
I work in a decent sized, local, indie bookstore. It’s a great job 99% of the time and a lot of our customers are pretty neat people. Any who, middle of the day this little old lady comes up. She’s lovably kooky. She effuses how much she loves the store and how she wishes she could spend more time in it but her husband is waiting in the car (OH! I BETTER BUY HIM SOME CHOCOLATE!), she piles a bunch of art supplies on the counter and then stops and tells me how my bangs are beautiful and remind her of the ocean (“Wooooosh” she says, making a wave gesture with her hand)
Ok. I think to myself. Awesomely happy, weird little old ladies are my favorite kind of customer. They’re thrilled about everything and they’re comfortably bananas. I can have a good time with this one. So we chat and it’s nice.
Then this kid, who’s been up my counter a few times to gather his school textbooks, comes up in line behind her (we’re connected to a major university in the city so we have a lot of harried students pass through). She turns around to him and, out of nowhere, demands that he put his textbooks on the counter. He’s confused but she explains that she’s going to buy his textbooks.
He goes sheetrock white. He refuses and adamantly insists that she can’t do that. It’s like, $400 worth of textbooks. She, this tiny old woman, bodily takes them out of her hands, throws them on the counter and turns to me with a intense stare and tells me to put them on her bill. The kid at this point is practically in tears. He’s confused and shocked and grateful. Then she turns to him and says “you need chocolate.” She starts grabbing handfuls of chocolates and putting them in her pile.
He keeps asking her “why are you doing this?” She responds “Do you like Harry Potter?“ and throws a copy of the new Cursed Child on the pile too.
Finally she’s done and I ring her up for a crazy amount of money. She pays and asks me to please give the kid a few bags for his stuff. While I’m bagging up her merchandise the kid hugs her. We’re both telling her how amazing she is and what an awesome thing she’s done. She turns to both of us and says probably one of the most profound, unscripted things I’ve ever had someone say:
“It’s important to be kind. You can’t know all the times that you’ve hurt people in tiny, significant ways. It’s easy to be cruel without meaning to be. There’s nothing you can do about that. But you can choose to be kind. Be kind.”
The kid thanks her again and leaves. I tell her again how awesome she is. She’s staring out the door after him and says to me: “My son is a homeless meth addict. I don’t know what I did. I see that boy and I see the man my son could have been if someone had chosen to be kind to him at just the right time.”
I’ve bagged up all her stuff and at this point am super awkward and feel like I should say something but I don’t know what. Then she turns to me and says: I wish I could have bangs like that but my darn hair is just too curly.“ And leaves.
And that is the story of the best customer I’ve ever had. Be kind to somebody today.
I didn’t reblog earlier.
So I am now.
Be kind. It’s worth the effort.
Ths is such a beautiful story. I hope that her son got help and is doing okay.
