A tryst with promise…chapter 2 – The pinky promise.

Knock, knock…
I: “Who’s there??”
Voice : “Hello… I am Promise. I came by to say THANK YOU!”
I: “Well, come on in, and why the Thank you, pray tell!”

Promise: “I come visiting, when someone keeps a promise. Sometimes I knock and don’t get an answer, but I am persistent. I keep coming to remind humans… The best part for me is when I come  to say thank you when someone actually makes a promise they made, come true …..because that is the secret to happiness, mine and theirs…”

I: “well sounds all good, I am just trying to recollect the ones I kept. I am just back from a long day at work…”

Promise: “You really wished that your friend TIME you met last time, came back again and knocked on your door, didn’t you?”

I: “ Maybe I did…but, you are equally welcome. I am curious, though, what made you show up. So tell me.”
Promise: “Do you know of all the promises made, which one is the most sacred?!”
I: “No idea, and I wont pretend to even venture a guess. I promise a lot of things to a lot of lots…including myself. I don’t even know if manage to keep many of them but I work hard at it.” “So which is the most sacred one??”

Promise: “The pinky promise…” 

I: “AH …I get it now. Completely! No wonder you have come! Bless your heart and THANK YOU. You made my day…I will continue keeping up my pinky promises as often as I can”

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 …my thoughts wandered back to the wonderful evening of Feb 28^th 2015, just a few hours before my flight for a business trip…a pinky promise was kept, indeed…
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“Dad, Daaad, Daaaaad, You remember that today is Sunday, right?”, my young 7 year son, Ankush, prods me on, as I am busy preparing for my business trip in a few hours.
“Yes, it is Sunday, but I am busy working on a few things to get ready and then fly to work to meet some clients.”
“Oh…so are you leaving soon?”
“In a few hours, why?”
“Because you promised to take me to sponge bob movie this week, and you should always keep your pinky promises.”
“I did make you a promise, huh?!”
“Yes, Dad, you did. Will you keep it?” the tiny eyes were focused on me.

NO Dad can ever win over that look…..I checked my phone. Flight in 3 hours. Movie in 10 minutes. Close, but doable….

“You are my first client, Ankush, and I fully intend to keep my promise. Let us not wait a minute. Let us DO IT”
“YEAH!!!, YEAH!!! Will you get me a blue Icy too, and some nachos and cheese?”
“When we do something, we do it RIGHT, whatever you want!! Lets GOGOGO!!”

…and there we were at AMC theaters in 10 minutes…. popcorn, nachos, a big icy blue in hand, and a theater full of younglings with their parents/uncles/aunts/brothers/sisters/friends who had all come to keep their pinky promises indeed!

….Well, how was the movie, you ask ? Who cares what was up on the screen?!
What matters is who you went with, and the memories that you create along the way….Don’t be sucked into the professional movie critic mode. Don’t assess, don’t analyze, don’t judge, don’t criticize, just relax and have a good time! There’s enough drama that goes outside a movie, to bring it into a theater…And while you are at it, have a GO at the awesome foodies goodies!

SpongeBob was the same who he was, his world was the same as it is on the Cartoon networks or Netflix or wherever…. what I discovered watching it with my 7 year old son is that by keeping a single pinky promise, I brought in a flood of happiness into his and my life in a flash. It created a memory that will last forever, and I intend to create more of them, every chance I get!
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Promise: “I guess it is time to say goodbye, for now. Don’t let the big stuff get in the way of small stuff…In the end, a lifetime memory is almost always a result of the small things..….as small as your pinky, for example!”
I: “I think my friend TIME will come back soon, I know that was the TIME well spent! Bye… and see you soon”
Promise: “Bye, you build a great memory and I will see you soon”
I: “Pinky promise?!”