Some Goggles Into A Weird World

(I fix computers and electronics at a small-town electronics shop, in what is a pretty touristy town in the summer. In the winter the lake is frozen over and the tourists tend to stay home. It is currently the middle of winter, and well below freezing. My manager walks over.)

Manager: “Hey, you have a lot of experience working with small things; do you think you could fix this?”

(I look up to see a ten- to twelve-year-old girl peeking over my counter, and my manager hands me a pair of swim goggles with the nose-piece in the center unclipped from both eye cups.)

Me: “Uh… Sure? I can take a look?”

Manager: “I tried to get them back together, but my fingers just can’t work with something that small.”

(I manage to get the nose piece snapped back onto the eye cups, fixing the swimming goggles.)

Me: “Here you go.”

(My manager hands them back to the little girl, who whispers something to my manager and hands her something I can’t see. The little girl runs off happily.)

Manager: “You get a treat!”

(She hands me a small chocolate bar that the girl has given her to give me.)

Me: “Uh, thanks?”

Manager: “She couldn’t figure out why her mother sent her here to get those fixed. I guess because it’s difficult.”

(I was left very touched by the little girl sharing her treat, but very confused why she was sent to an electronics store to get swim goggles fixed… and wondering where she was going to go swimming in the frozen-over lake.)