More Than Enough

The teal tiles that lined the floor and half of the walls always smelled like cheap cleanser and just a bit of wee, I remembered.

When I was little, and my father brought me in for my weekly treat of just one donut selected with my eager finger smushed up against the glass case just above the tarnish-spotted metal border.  He'd ruffle my hair, chastise me for putting a finger smudge on someone else's hard work, and slide his thin leather wallet from the back pocket of his overalls.  It was too old to crackle when it opened, but I always imagined that it did, because the dark lines of decades of use on the creases of it. 

I never knew or understood how important it was to my father to be able to do this for me once a week. A little levity - a little bit beyond “enough.”  It was another chink in the chain of the poverty that followed my family line back to the coal mines.  

I was also too young to see the big machine in the back, too, behind the glass case and beyond the teal tiles, churning out the pastries by the dozens.  A lot of inhumanity went into that ritual.  A lot of automation.  A lot of jobs lost.  

Today,  I lifted my own son up to see the miniature factory behind the counter, and let him pull his own dollar from my dad’s, crackled, leather wallet.  He went to a good school.  He had his own savings account.  He had more than enough.  But once a week, I still took him here, to where my father’s sacrifices still mattered, and where the teal tiles still smelled like cheap cleanser, and just a bit of wee.    

--Originally published on Reddit.