Heroes Triumphant Return

Yesterday evening, O and I went to the Carlsbad Outlet Mall. We listened to Prairie Home Companion on our way there, as its actually quite a distance from our home in Rancho Bernardo, and we left just before Six PM when Garrison Keeler and Company begin their soothing ah shucks faux huckster intellectual salve session for the American Middle Class miscreants who need to feel reassured that we're in at least some small way superior to people who don’t listen to shows like Prairie Home Companion.

Our target for the evening was the Croc store. O intended to purchase Crocs for her nieces and nephew, to be included in a package that was going out soon to Mongolia. I like Crocs myself. I own two pair, but hope to obtain more in the near future. In fact, if things go as planned, I will be a full blown Croc collector by this time next year. The plastic shoe version of a Philatelist.

We were successful at the Croc store, and, it being kinda late, we decided to get something to eat for dinner. O wanted Japanese food from a chain place called Sai Pan. Calling it a Japanese restaurant would be a bit of a stretch though. Akin to referring to Taco Bell as fine Mexican cuisine. Maybe not quite so bad as that. Taco Bell is really only acceptable when one is nearly insolvent... or drunk... or both. Sai Pan on the other hand it actually quite acceptable. It just has that cookie cutter just-above-fast-food-restaurant feel to it. You’re definitely not thinking, “Boy, I sure do feel like I'm inside a Ryokan in Old Kyoto!”

Anyway, there were a lot of diners in attendance that night. As usual, the Carlsbad Mall felt like a Free Market Festival Day at the United Nations. There are people from every corner of the globe wandering about. Hell, the Public Service Announcements are in both English and Japanese. The first time I heard the promulgation in Japanese, it left me perplexed, simply because there are so many more Spanish speakers in attendance than Japanese speakers. Maybe the Mall is partially owned by savvy Japanese Investors, and thus demands a certain level of recognition, even subtly.

In the restaurant, there was this kid sitting with his parents nearby. He was maybe three at the most. They sat behind us. Every now and again, this boy would laugh out loud a laugh that I absolutely loved. It was a kind of triumphant laugh, a squeaky version no doubt, but hardy nonetheless. It reminded me of a returning, beloved hero, riding into town on a white horse to the cheering and jubilation of the townsfolk. Not a brutal military man, but a romantic movie star-like hero that all women swoon over. I said as much to O, who seemed to agree with me.

Later on, we were walking back through the mall, kind of making our way to a coffee at Starbucks. O stepped into a store while I waited outside. It was getting late and the crowd was thinning out. Suddenly out of nowhere, that same little boy came running up from the other direction, he stopped near me brandishing a new plastic pirate’s sword, purchased from one of the novelty kiosks. He thrust the sword into the air as his mom called to him, and he triumphantly plunged the sword into the scabbard, and the scabbard into his belt, and took off running again. I imagined he was off to a regal reception of adoring admirers somewhere between the Croc store and the food court, grinning triumphantly, declaring: “A-Ha!!’