In university I had a part-time job at a shop that sold doughnuts and coffee. Situated on a block where several buses stopped, it served the people who had a few minutes to wait for their bus.
Every afternoon around four o'clock, a group of schoolchildren would burst into the shop, and business would come to a stop. Adults would glance in, see the crowd and pass on. But I didn't mind if the children waited for their bus inside. Sometimes I would hand out a bus fare when a ticket went missing — always repaid the next day. On snowy days I would give away some doughnuts. I would lock the door at closing time, and we waited in the warm shop until their bus finally arrived.
I enjoyed my young friends, but it never occurred to me that I played an important role in their lives — until one afternoon when a man came and asked if I was the girl working on weekdays around four o'clock. He identified himself as the father of two of my favorites.
"I want you to know I appreciate what you do for my children. I worry about them taking two buses to get home. It means a lot that they can wait here and you keep an eye on them. When they are with the doughnut lady, I know they are safe." I told himit wasn't a big deal, and that I enjoyed the kids.
So I was the Doughnut Lady. I not only received a title, but became a landmark.
Now I think about all the people who keep an eye on my own children. They become, well, Doughnut Ladies. Like the men atthe skating rink(滑冰场) who let my boys ring home; Or the bus driver who drove my daughter to her stop at the end of the route at night but wouldn't leave until I arrived to pick her up; Or that nice police officer who took pity on my boys walking home in the rain when I was at work — even though the phone rang all the next day with calls from curious neighbors. "Was that a police car I saw at your house last night?"
That wasn't a police car. That was a Doughnut Lady.
