Doughnut & String Bean

I live next to a portly little boy, who for the past year and a half I've called "Doughnut."

Now please don't think I'm making fun. Doughnut may not sound like the nicest nickname, but when I use it for this little boy, I'm only imagining the best features of a doughnut...Really. And as you know, doughnuts have A LOT of great features!

I love this kid. He's always running around, cheering, getting into trouble, running through the spraying water of a fire extinguisher - it's cute stuff. But I think my favorite thing about Doughnut is that, oddly enough, his name is also Sean, something I found out very quickly last year when I began hearing:

"Sean, get out of the road!"

"Sean, leave them alone!"

"Sean, no more ice cream!"

And then I would see Doughnut, smiling that cute smile of his.

Now, it's always odd when you meet someone with the same name as yours. It's like the world has chosen the same one/two or three syllable sound to define who you both are. But as for Doughnut, I think the funniest thing about him is that I've given so much thought to him over the past year and a half, and to him I'm nothing more than just a random guy who gets in his way when I walk in front of his apartment. That's until something happened yesterday - something I'm a bit embarrassed to write about, because it honestly almost made me cry.

I was walking back from the supermarket. Minding my own business, whistling, when all of a sudden Doughnut came running around his porch. BAM! Knocked right into me. This happens quite a bit, as you can imagine it would when you live next to kids, and every time it happens he always runs off, not saying a word. This particular encounter, however, was different. Doughnut crashed into me, looked up, smiled that cute smile of his, and said:

"Sorry, Sean."

I paused. I almost dropped my fucking groceries. He knows me. Doughnut, THE Doughnut knows who I am. I felt like I just ran into Lady Gaga or something. And then he ran away, off to more adventures, and he started yelling to his friends.

And here's the kicker...Want to know what he was yelling?

"String Bean! String Bean! String Bean!"