How To Make People Happy.

Today is Pizza Day at Thing 2's school, so it's the one day a month I go into her class and help give out pizza and drinks. Thing 2 is happy enough to have me there, and I'm happy to do it. I get to know the kids, ("Okay, THAT kid is going to set someone's couch on fire, don't let him in our house".) and they get to know me.
Most of the kids like me and I get along with just fine, but there are a few who don't like me, and believe me, the feeling is mutual. (Mrs. Loudshoes is a hard-ass, she makes you say please and thank you every stinking time; and when you give her the stink-eye because of it, she will give you your pizza last.)
Since this is June, and therefore the last pizza day of the school year, I thought I'd bring in a dessert for the kids, even the ones I don't particularly like. It's a bit of a minefield, bringing food into the school, because of peanut allergies, but I managed to find a brand of fudgesicles that were peanut-free, so I was good. (To bring homemade food in is a nightmare, better left alone. You have to submit a list of ingredients before you make the dish, and then sign an agreement that you won't substitute any of the ingredients for anything else. Then you have to make the dish and woe betide the person who runs out of yogurt and uses sour cream.)

The kids were thrilled with this unimagined booty, and most of them reacted like I said school was all overwith today when I pulled the fudgesicles out of the bag. It is seriously too easy to make some people happy.I started wondering if I walked around with a permanent supply of fudgesicles would I make other people happy all the time? Would the cashier at Sobey's, the Tim Horton's lady and our dry cleaner, Mr. Grumpy Korean, have an epiphany and be happy with their lot in life if only they had a sweet, creamy chocolate treat presented to them? (I really want to try this on Mr. Grumpy Korean, because he is one dour man...I've never seen him smile even once.)

I gave the fudgesicles out around the time most of the kids were finishing their pizza, because I know at least a couple of them would have eaten the fudgesicle first. As it was, some of them stopped eating the pizza and tucked into the fudgesicle immediately, like they couldn't possibly finish those three bites of savory before falling all over the sweet. Most of them managed to eat their fudgesicles without incident, but a couple of them dropped theirs and a few more completely bathed themselves in it, and one kid lost the stick entirely, and I cannot fathom how he did that.

And then I had a fudgesicle, and although it didn't put me in the blissful rapture of the Grade 6s, it did make me happy. So I'm going to have another one.