Addie locked her house, turned around, and was startled. On her driveway was a ten-year-old girl with a cardboard box in each hand.
“Hi! Would you like to buy some Girl Guide cookies? They’re chocolate mint. Six dollars a box.”
“Those are my favourites!” exclaimed Addie. “Let’s just see how much cash I have…” She opened her wallet. “Darn! I have none. Will you wait a moment? I have some–”
The Guide squealed and pointed to Addie’s perennial bed. “Your garden gnome is adorable! I just love his pink pointed ears and big blue eyes!” She knelt beside him. “Look at his little lantern! It glows at night, right?”
“Um, yes. I’m just going inside for cash…won’t be but a minute.”
But when Addie returned, the Guide and gnome were gone. Four boxes of cookies remained.
She giggled. Did the Guide just steal her gnome? How ridiculous!
She bit into a cookie. Was it theft? Or a mutually beneficial trade? The gnome was a gift from her mother-in-law, and Addie felt obligated to display it prominently. She suspected her mother-in-law delighted in seeing the kitschy gnome in Addie’s tasteful garden.
Addie didn’t love it. She recalled the Guide’s beatific face as she knelt beside it; it was love at first sight for her.
The cookies, though. Addie loved them.
It seemed to Addie that her day was immeasurably improved by the trade, and she celebrated with another cookie.