Stories From My Childhood: Crosswalks and Ice Cream

When I was about six years old, my family and I were on vacation. We were at some destination that had a playground across the street. My dad took me to the playground. On the way back, crossing the street, I used the crosswalk (like a good little girl); my dad didn't. Once on the other side, there was a lady with a cooler of ice cream bars. She handed me one and said this is because I used the crosswalk. Since my dad didn't use the crosswalk, he got no ice cream. When we got back to my mom, I told her about how I got the ice cream bar and she thought it was neat. Did I think it was neat? NO! It was creepy. A stranger gave me ice cream. Isn't that a huge no-no?? So I was scared to eat the ice cream. I told my mom that I didn't really want the ice cream (but didn't tell her it was because I was scared of it). She said that was fine and asked if she could have it if I wasn't going to eat it. I was just glad to get the "scary" ice cream out of my hands and gave it to my mom. After my mom ate the ice cream bar, I remember thinking "oh. Maybe I could have and should have eaten it. If it's safe enough for mom it would have been safe enough for me. Dang it. Now I don't have ice cream!" And then I went from being scared to sad. I have eaten one fewer ice cream bar in my life and my mom has had one more all because I was scared to eat the ice cream from the nice lady rewarding children for being safe and using the crosswalk.