One time, five or six years ago, Scott and I headed out to Discovery Park on his motorcycle. We were rolling down the hill into Ballard when we realized that neither of us knew where the park was. There was a group of people milling around on a lawn up ahead, so we pulled over near them. It was a group of teenagers packing up a church yard sale. A few of them wandered over.
Scott yelled out to them over the engine sound, “Do you know how to get to Discovery Park?”
“Wow. You’re way off,” one of them laughed. He stepped up alongside us and started describing how to get there. The others stood a few paces back, looked at us curiously, and whispered between themselves.
We worked out where the park was – we were on the wrong side of Lake Union – and were about to leave, when two of the kids who’d been looking at us earlier stepped up to the motorcycle and slipped a windscreen into a slot in front of the handlebars. It was from their unsold inventory and it fit perfectly.
We thanked them and Scott started to maneuver into a U-turn. The guy who’d given us the directions called out, “So where are you from?”
I laughed and called out the name of our Seattle neighborhood, “Capitol Hill!”
His dry response: “Well no wonder you got lost.”
Those Ballard people are so nice. I hope the alliance holds up.