Sweetness at the bottom of the cupcake

I've had a really, really bad week, month, year, whatever. Really bad, especially lately when it all feels like a ton of stuff is piled on me or wrong or just disastrous, out of control.

But once in a while a small act of kindness can restore a girl's faith in humanity.

Friday I went to Northern Civilization and there were 2 things I wanted: a cup of Starbucks with the free mini pastry, and then to stop at my favorite bakery and get a cupcake for later in the weekend. Starbucks went off without a hitch.

ITSam and I arrange at the bakery and there were no cupcakes. I adore, desire, crave, yearn for, dream of, have wild fantasies about, this bakery's vanilla and strawberry creme with white chocolate cupcakes and they were out. Nary a cupcake to be had. I sort of broke down.

I'm suddenly telling the guy behind the counter, a kid basically, named Jeff, about my terrible fate in life right now, that I drove an 1 for one of these cupcakes, they've never been out before and I just sort of faded to a stop, hunched my shoulders, muttered thanks and started to walk away.

Jeff said, "wait! Ya got about 15 minutes." I look at him from behind a curtain of hair and one tear slides down my face and drops off the tip of my nose, and I nod.

Jeff then proceeds to venture into the huge backroom freezer. He comes back and said they have the actual cake part of the cupcake, frozen and if I didn't want to eat it right away he would make me a vanilla strawberry creme with white chocolate chips cupcake. He said he would make me as many as I wanted.

This was not just a matter of grabbing some frosting and slapping it on. He had to get strawberries and make the strawberry part of the filling from scratch. Then he got out a tub of vanilla buttercreme frosting and assembled the cupcakes. He had to fill pastry bags with frosting. He didn't have any white chocolate chips on hand so he went into the store part of the bakery and got the missing ingredient.

I just stood there with my mouth hanging open. I couldn't believe that this guy went to all this trouble for me all because I was having a bad life at the moment. I got four cupcakes since he was going to all the work. Actually, ITSam ordered four for me because I couldn't speak. I was just shocked at his kindness, his effort.

I said thank you about a zillion times. I told his manager on the way out what he did. I wrote a comment to their web site.

It was more than a cupcake, you know. He just restored my faith in humanity, at least for a little while.

I'm thankful for Jeff, and people like him.

Maggie