Small gifts...

Last week when I went to the thrift stores, I was looking around for things to bring to my space at the antique shop in town. (That's doing very nicely, and I'm thrilled..... I didn't realize how much I missed the buying/selling/displaying until I started this up again.)

Anyway.... two of the items I found last week were two little Christmas mice-- just fifty cents for each, and I bought both of them, marked them up, and added them to my Christmas shelves in the shop. Cute, cute, cute.... but I didn't keep them because I don't want to start another collection...... I have a Santa collection, so I don't need a Christmas mouse collection.

This morning, I was in the thrift shop again...... and the girl at the register told me she had a gift for me from one of the other customers. Apparently, a woman last week saw me buying the two Christmas mice, and after I left the store, she went into the Christmas room and found a third little Christmas mouse..... she brought it up to the register, paid the fifty cents for it, and asked the girl to hold it for me, and give it to me as a gift the next time I came into the store.

And that's exactly what happened today when I walked into the thrift store-- the girl at the register (who is almost always there and knows me) gave me the little mouse and told me the story about the lady last week who bought it for me because she wanted me to have the set of three. I was just amazed..... and of course, I was thinking of keeping all three mice, just because that other customer gifted me with the third one.... but honestly, I don't want to start another collection...... and with me, if I have three of something, I will soon have thirteen, and then sometime thereafter, I will have thirty little Christmas mice in a parade on the mantel.

I thanked the cashier at the thrift store for giving me the mouse.... she didn't know who the other customer was because she isn't a 'regular' at the store... but I asked her to thank the woman if she does come back again. Such a nice thing to do..... and that gesture alone tells you a lot about this very small town that we live in.


My own small gift today was for one of the squirrels in the yard........ Just before I left to go into town, I saw that a squirrel was trapped inside one of the catch/release cages that my husband set up in the yard. Of course, my husband wasn't here...... he went into his office..... not his home-office here, but his office-office at work. My friend J told me just this morning that if a squirrel got caught in one of the traps when my husband was in town, she'd be happy to put the trap in her truck and we would drive it over to the next town and release it by the lake.

But honestly...... that squirrel was screaming and carrying-on something awful out there in that little cage..... back and forth, back and forth, throwing himself against the wire metal cage.... I just couldn't stand to watch that.... and the sounds the squirrel was making were just heart-breaking, to say the least.

I looked at the squirrel.... he looked at me. I picked up the cage and brought it over to the gazebo........ I leaned the front of the cage up on the step.... the squirrel was down at the bottom of the cage..... and I unlatched the little door..... and out he ran.... and he ran, and he ran, and he ran........

"Free at last, free at last."

From now on, if my husband wants to capture and release the wildlife around here, then he's got to be here to release them as soon as they're captured. (And, of course, I know he won't release them right back onto our own property...)

I can hear my husband now........ "Once a city girl, always a city girl."

Guilty as charged. (But I received good karma today from the squirrels. Another small gift.)