A Simple Act of Kindness

While in line at a coffee shop, I stepped aside in a single, elegantly-rendered act of kindness to let the woman with a screaming toddler ahead of me in line so as to obtain her daily fix sooner instead of sharing in shattered eardrums for all the patrons in the coffee shop. The screaming toddler, to everyone's surprise, immediately ceased its caterwauling and looked in befuddled wonderment at me.

The woman also let her eyes linger on me.

“He's not mine,” she mouthed silently to me, pointing to the toddler.

“I gathered,” I mouthed silently back, gesturing for her to complete her order.

As the woman placed her order, with her attention fixed on me, the now-subdued toddler tugged on my pants in order to maintain constant attention on himself.

Unfortunately, a few minutes before I had used the toilet at the coffee shop and had been careless in the retightening of my belt. As a result, the toddler pulled down my pants to my ankles, exposing my Superman underwear for all to see.

This exposure of my secret identity precipitated the woman's inability to fully grasp her coffee cup in her hand and it spilled on the register and splashed on my genitals. The coffee spilling on the register, due to inadequate wiring on the register, triggered a short circuit which caused a 120 volt and 1-amp spark to zap the cashier and send her flying backwards over the back counter to the kitchen.

At that point my screaming was far louder than the toddler's had been. Not to be outdone, the toddler started screaming as well.

I mistakenly thought the toddler's screaming was a fashion discriminatory wail and I had made an ill choice of underwear selection that morning. I should have chosen the less iconic plaid underwear.

The woman immediately gathered the toddler up in her arms and tried to placate my screams by grabbing a damp towel from the register counter but accidentally upturning several additional orders of drinks, causing the customer who had been waiting patiently for their drinks to suddenly despair and curse loud enough for all to hear…

…which included the precocious toddler, who noted the shocked silence afterwards in the coffee shop.

The toddler, sensing the power of the stream of new words, quit screaming and instead repeated the stream of new words verbatim and with identical emotional intensity as the waiting customer.

At that point, the woman, instead of wiping the scalding coffee from my seared genitals, shoved the towel into the toddler's mouth.

The cashier stumbled forward in the kitchen and upset a vat of freshly-prepared soup, which in turn launched a tirade of additional new words the toddler could hear from other employees in the kitchen. It also left an open flame on the stove, which caught fire against the now spilled-liquor one of the employees had been adding to the soup. The fire spread along the trajectory of the spilled liquor out to my pants, which were still around my ankles and now also on fire.

I hadn't noticed my pants were on fire as I pulled them up from my ankles but noticed the heat further searing my crotch upon contact, causing me to howl with pain and grab a glass of water from a nearby table, which I then used to douse the fire as my pants went back around my ankles, still burning.

The toddler began to laugh as the flames continued to spread through the coffee shop.

The woman, noting the flames and their proximity to the toddler, shoved me out of the way to grab the toddler and get them both out of the coffee shop. I collided with the swearing customer and caused the swearing customer to utter new expletives, enhancing the toddler's vocabulary further.

I and the swearing customer both fell back onto a table, the orientation of which caused a succession of tables to topple with their drinks and laptops and customers onto each other, creating a daisy-chain reaction of body parts, flames, electronics, and spillage.

The woman had the toddler under one arm and proceeded to stiff arm anyone who got in her way as she went on her mad dash to escape the coffee shop carnage, causing additional daisy-chain reactions in her wake, while the toddler began to openly guffaw with delight.

I stumbled out of the coffee shop after her with my pants still around my ankles, followed by the remaining customers and the coffee shop staff as flames leaped to the ceiling inside. The fire department arrived and immediately first released a fire extinguisher to my pants and crotch, which were still smoldering, before addressing the fire inside the coffee shop. The fire had begun to spread from the coffee shop to the surrounding businesses on either side of the coffee shop.

At this point, I was covered with cold foam lining my exposed lower body and I was surprised to find the toddler's small hand suddenly in my own. The toddler looked up at me while the woman was distracted by her phone as she called the toddler's mother.

The toddler said, “Superman", as he pointed to my now soaked and foam-coated underwear.

I looked at the toddler, then at the woman, then at the irate customer, then at the cashier, then at the kitchen employees, and then at the fire which was finally coming under control. All of them were now glaring at me and the toddler.

I gently released the toddler's hand and flicked off as much of the fire extinguisher foam as I could from my lower body and pants, which were still around my ankles. I then pulled up my pants and began to stumble towards my home.

The woman’s eye happened to catch my interaction with the toddler and she scooped up the toddler and scampered after me.

“Hey! Sir?” she shouted at me.

I, now in a daze, continued walking.

The woman set the now laughing toddler down and grabbed my shoulder from behind, spinning me around to face her.

I stumbled as my eyes had begun to glaze over with layers of shock and fatigue as the woman peered into them. The woman helped me catch my balance as my pants again fell around my ankles.

“You really didn't have to let me in front of you, you know,” she moved a stray hair out of my face while smiling at me.

“Superman!” the toddler guffawed.

I was still in a daze and didn't flinch or blink as the woman adjusted my hair. Gradually, my attention manifested on the to-go coffee cup the woman was holding in her hand.

“How did you get that?” I pointed at the cup. “In the midst of all the chaos?”

The woman blanched as she realized she had just picked it up off the counter as she was leaving. It was the one remaining coffee beverage that hadn't been destroyed in the aftermath. She was certain it wasn't hers, as that had been spilled on my genitals, which now smelled of delicious freshly-brewed coffee and fire-extinguisher goop.

In a moment of kindness, she offered it to me. My fixation on the coffee was almost predatory as I slowly reached for it.

The irate customer whom had lost most of his drinks to spillage shouted at me and the woman.

“Hey!” he bellowed. “That's my drink!”

Both the woman and my attention was diverted by the irate customer as the woman handed over the coffee to me, which caused the coffee cup to spill, once again, on my genitals