I can't say I had a particularly privileged childhood; I lived with my mother and her mother. My grandmother was retired, far too early, and my mom worked in a shop, holding things together with hair pins while raising two children. A lot of our toys were handmade, but mom made a point of getting us store-bought things, too.
Mom talked a lot about her dad, who had died when she was a child, and about all the things he wanted to give his children and couldn't. Sometimes she'd do this over a box of a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts that she'd splurged for and brought home, and we'd listen with sticky lips and fingers, enjoying the rare treat.
Also, nearby, when the junkyard had metamorphed into a small strip of constantly changing shops, there briefly existed a small ice creamery. It smelled of bleach, and a little bit of pee. Mom would take me there to get a banana split very rarely - I think I only experienced it four or five times while the places existed. They had "real cherries," which is a strong memory for me even though I can't for the life of me think of what I considered fake cherries. They had a wooden pachinko machine that ate quarters and sometimes gave gumballs that tasted like dye.
Mom also had (and still has), a flaky old wallet. It's not leather anymore - if it ever was, all the skin is gone now, leaving just the cloth mesh it had been stitched too and a few grey, tattered whisps of unidentifiable material. She always says she'll get a new one. She never does. It wasn't her dad's - she had other things from him that she treasured.
Still, all of this wove together for the story, which came up when I was challenged to do flash fiction about a wallet and a donut shop. Mom recognized either herself or her dad in it, which was a better prize for me than the acknowledgement I got for a win in that contest.
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