Driving little friendships

Cotton and Candy have always been in awe of garbage trucks, more appropriately called waste collection vehicles. They watch in admiration as the trucks come, stick out their robotic arms, lift up our bins, tip them in and place them back on the curb. On the days of our weekly pick up, watching this process is probably the most exciting part of their day.

They are regulars who run out to the curb the moment they hear the whirring of the truck. Cotton and Candy then wave excitedly and say hi to the driver, all along jumping in the air and waving their arms wildly. By now, we recognize the driver and he recognizes them. He gives them a big grin and waves back. I can’t put in words how happy this makes them and they go about telling everybody that they are friends with the garbage truck driver. Really, a warm smile and a wave is all it takes for the driver to be marked as a friend in their little heads.

Yesterday, I saw Candy drawing something on paper. She said it was a flower pot. Err, that drawing looked nothing like a pot, but okay. She then told me she was drawing it fast so that she could show it to the driver and wanted to finish it before he arrived. That warmed my heart. She truly considers that driver to be her friend and it was her way of letting him know.

As usual, I couldn’t capture the moments on camera clearly, but this time I did manage to take some rickety pictures. The first one is Candy running to show her drawing to the driver. The second one is Cotton and Candy watching the truck as it rolls by. They wait until every bin on our street has been emptied.

I can’t help but ponder over how easy it is for kids to label somebody as their ‘friend’. I don’t know at what stage we unlearn this. For now, I am glad I get to witness this friendship between my kids and a kind driver who waves at them as he goes about his job of emptying our bins of trash.