Big Brains Meets Big Bird

My husband and I are having dinner at a place that includes a stage musician playing and singing along with his guitar. It’s a quiet night, and one of the only other tables is a family with a little girl who’s just a few years old and carrying a Big Bird plushie, who seems entranced by the performance. Her mother gives her a five dollar bill and encourages her to go put it in the singer’s tip bucket, which she shyly does before running away.

He smiles and thanks her, and after finishing his current song, launches into the next one. He sings, “Sunny days, keeping the clouds away, on my way to where the air is clean…”

The little girl’s eyes get huge and, before her parents can react, she grabs her mother’s purse and goes racing up to the stage with it in her hands, dragging her Sesame Street toy. Her mother catches up to her and everyone has a good laugh, but all I can think is, “Clever man.”