The fine line between exceptional and the everyday
This was a few years ago, when my grandson was still quite young, but not so young that he was ignorant of the pleasures of traveling to foreign lands, the thrill of air travel, the luxury of a fine hotel and the intoxicating power of ordering room service.
He was sitting in the house watching cartoons when his father asked if he wanted to go to Naples. Who was he kidding? Of course wanted to go to Naples. Paxton was over the moon. He loved Naples. He loved everything about it. They had already been several times in his brief memory of existence, but he knew quality when he saw it. The swanky hotels, the sugarcane beaches, the azure water, the seemingly endless menu options, the heated pools and fresh towel service.
It all very much agreed with his sense of propriety and station, even if he was only five, technically unemployed and without even a high school diploma. Warm towels and cool water, blue skies and daiquiris, steak and eggs with a side of ice cream. What was not to like?
Paxton had already decided that his plans for the future involved being fabulously well-off. With a precocious appetite for the finer things in life, there was no way he would ever be satisfied living a common life, and why should he, after all?
Which is why he couldn’t understand why they hadn’t packed a thing and only ten minutes later pulled into the parking lot of an office supply store for paper and toner cartridges.
The trip to Staples has never been the same.
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