The time a homeless man bought us lunch

Ok I promised some that I would eventually tell this story. It's time. Funny now but at the time it was mortifying!

I was discharged from the hospital on a Friday. My mom and Ethan were there to pick me up. Mike was with baby Cadence at the NICU and the plan was to join them. I was horribly emotional because I pictured myself going home with a sweet baby girl. Not leaving to go visit the NICU downtown, drugged up on pain killers and feeling like death. The nurse was kind enough to wheel me to the car because I was still hurting quite a bit. I'm holding it together at this point. Then we stopped at the pharmacy and picked up my pain meds and rented the breast pump. I'm still doing OK. We are hungry because it's afternoon so we decide to stop at McDonald's since it's right next to the freeway. I should note - this is also NOT what I pictured after being discharged from the hospital. lol. I pictured going home to snuggle a sweet baby. Not sitting in a McD's trying to hold on to my sanity.

We get seated inside. Ethan is in a highchair and I'm sitting with him while my mom goes to order. While she's gone I notice there are about 5 homeless men at the 2 tables next to ours and they are arguing and being kind of beligerent. Awkward. I try not to make eye contact, but at the same time I'm concerned about Ethan and myself at this table and wondering if I had to could I pick him up and run? (remember it's been 3 days since I had my insides ripped out of me and stuffed back in). I look at my phone and check my e-mail to distract myself. There's an e-mail from my boss about shared leave and mentioning that I could reapply given Cadence's condition. Ok now there is a lump in my throat. Things are breaking down. Now the men are yelling at each other. One of them starts yelling "I'll kick your @ss if you don't get out of here!".  Stuff like that. OMG. My mom finally comes back with our food and sits down. Then asks if things are getting tense with the homeless men. I nod. So she immediately gets the manager who throws them out. One of the men remained to finish his lunch (he was the only one actually eating).

I don't know what happened to me. I think it was the combo of the pain meds, the yelling and fear I had of the rowdy homeless men, realizing that I'm sitting in a McDonald's while my little baby girl is in a NICU downtown when she should be WITH ME, and the e-mail I just read. HORMONES. Don't you love them?

I bit into my food and then burst into tears. Tears are streaming down my face. I try to wipe them away but they just keep coming. So pathetic to be sobbing in a McDonald's. And embarrassing. OMG soooo embarrassing. I finally pull myself together and then the homeless man that stayed to finish his lunch comes over and tries to hand my mom some money. He keeps saying "I'm so sorry" "It got way out of hand" ect. And insists that she take the money even though we tried protesting several times and telling him that it wasn't really his fault I was crying. How could he possibly know why I'm crying? My mom finally accepts the money so that we don't insult the guy. We say thank you. What else could we do?

And that my friends is how to get a homeless man to buy you lunch. I don't recommend it. ;) I still feel bad that he gave us his cash. But I think it made him feel like he did an honorable thing and maybe that is worth more than a little cash?