One summer day, when I was six, I was having a bad day. I had a doctor’s appointment, my worst fear, needles and all. Shot after shot and after nearly an hour of pleading, crying and me running from the scary, needle wielding crazy maniac called the doctor, I was vaccinated. Not to my liking though. After my dreaded doctor’s appointment I had a baseball game, I loved baseball so I thought it would turn things around for me, It didn’t. We had lost badly to the worst team in the division, and I had let in the winning run, I felt horrible. My parents had felt bad for me and said to me,

“Hey, buddy, sorry about your game, do you maybe want to go out to Red Robin, as a little treat?” Before they even could finish saying Red Robin, I shook my short-haired face in excitement.

“This will make my day a lot better, what is better than junk food on a Saturday?” I thought to myself, I skipped over to the car and we were on our way to Red Robin.

We arrived at the Red Robin, with my parents, my brother, and my grandma. I was too excited to wait; I ran up to the doors and pushed my way in, letting the fumes of diabetes wash over me. It smelled vivid and alive with the flavors of junk food they were serving, a whiff of a cheeseburger, a sniff of French fry, it was glorious. When the rest of my family finally got in the restaurant we looked for the hostess, there were two people at the check in desk, a guy and a girl, the girl finally walked away after an hour of talking to the guy. We were finally seated in a booth in the corner of the restaurant; I had the best view of the TV. The waiter came back with coloring mats and crayons for me and my brother.
“What would you folks want to drink?” The waiter said, in an unenthusiastic tone.
“A water please.” My mother said. My grandma also asked for water.
“A sweet tea.” My father said, the waiter wrote the order down and looked at me.
“What will you be having young man?” He said with some intimidation.
“ A large sprite please.” I said, my brother then shouts
“I’LL HAVE WHAT HE’S HAVING… PLEASE?”

The waiter writes this down and walks away, obviously annoyed. The grown-ups then return to talking about parenty things. I return to my coloring mat when my brother pipes up. “Bathroom! Bathrooooommm!!” He starts tugging on my blue baseball jersey, when I oblige and tell my parents I was walking my brother to the bathroom, I had no idea how it would change me, and how my day was going to go from bad to worse.

We walked through person after person, passing plate after plate of delicious food, which I wanted. My stomach growled. We made it to the bathroom as another annoying birthday song was sung. He went in, and knowing he couldn’t keep himself out of trouble, I followed him into the bathroom. I was annoyed that I was torn away from my coloring mat. After five minutes of him “using” the bathroom, he finished. There was a man at the sink, just finishing up using the bathroom, he had auburn hair and brown eyes, and he looked somewhat depressed. I told my brother to wash his hands as he put his hand on the door. He ran over his long brown hair flopping around on his overgrown head. He finished washing his hands just as the man finished washing his. He walked out in front of us, and didn’t even seem to notice us. We walked out after him, but he didn’t realize that we were behind him, as I stretched out my hand to grab the door, he slammed the door back with the force of a supernova. The door caught my hand right on my fingers in-between the door and the door frame. A shot of pain radiated from my hand, after one big inhale, I screamed like no other. I tried to pull my hand out, to no avail.

“PUSH THE DOOR OPEN!!!” I screamed, in horrendous pain, but we were not strong enough to push the door open, I started crying, thinking I would die here with my fingers stuck in a door. Then the auburn haired man ran back in and opened the door, freeing my destroyed digits.

“Jesus kid, what happened to you that made you scr…” He paused mid-sentence when he saw my fingers. They were purple, but then flushed to a rosy shade of scarlet, redder than the Red Robin bird. My fingers where already starting to inflame and get bigger. “Oh, my, I’m sorry kid, where are your parents?” he said in a decent New York accent.

“thhhuu *sob* that way.” I pointed with my good hand. My brother had to lead him to our parents because I was so distraught and sobbing like a maniac. When we got back to my table I was greeted by a shriek from my grandma.

“My god! Max! Are you ok? What happened? Who is he?” She asked in rapid succession. My father, a more tempered man, asked me what happened. Though my sobs I told him what had happened and that the man had slammed my hand in the door for a good 15 seconds.

“Hey! I’m sorry, I’ve been having a bad day,” He exhaled, “I’ll pay for whatever is wrong with him. The name is Gary by the way.” he looked down, forlornly. “I’m sorry about your kid ma’am.”

“Thank you.” My mother said, our waiter saw the commotion, ran over and asked what had happened. My mother had to explain for me because I was still in pain. I felt bad for Gary, I looked at him. He was around middle aged, with auburn hair, and brown eyes, but he was quaint and quiet like he was at a court room rather than a Red Robin.
“I’ll be right back, before you go and get your kid fixed.” Our waiter said mid-step on his way to the kitchen. He came racing back, Mach five down the aisle. He had two backpack things. He gave my brother a pack and handed me mine and whispered, “Don’t tell your brother but I sneaked in some things for you, don’t open that until you get home.”

Gary asked for my mother’s phone numbers so he could get an update on my condition. We went to the hospital and arrived at 6:00. My father was a bit mad about what had happened but he cooled it off. I got a X-ray of my hand, two broken fingers, my pointer and middle finger. The doctors strapped my middle, ring, and pointer finger for stabilization. I had to stay at the hospital for 3 hours. The smell of cleaners and pure white at the hospital started to make me sick. I hated hospitals because of their looks. The doctors said that I couldn’t play any sports for 4 weeks. I got mad, really mad. I loved baseball, I hated that I had to wait. I was no longer sad for Gary, I was mad at him, he put me out of the championship game for my baseball game, but my mother told me after a week of being mad that Gary wanted to talk to me. I picked up the phone angrily.

“Hey, kid. I’m sorry for what I did to you.” He sighed, “I wish I did not take you out of baseball, I played that as a kid.”

“You broke my finger; I can’t play in my game! It’s all red now!” I half-screamed at him, I getting angrier.
“I know, your mother told me, listen I’m sorry what had happened, I just wanted to say that I feel bad and I want to say that I can’t get you back in your game, but I want to apologized for everything, and have you checked the backpack that the waiter gave you? I had forgotten about the backpack! I ran into my room and grabbed the backpack after telling him to hold on. I unzipped the backpack. In the pack was a Frisbee, and a baseball and a in the pack was something else, I got to them, they were Tigers tickets. I was ecstatic.
“What? How did? Huh?” I stammered.

“You’re welcome kid and good luck in your championship.”

I was no longer angry at Gary, I was happy, and I felt happy for him.

There was 5 tickets in the bag, one for me, and my family and Gary. The tigers ended up winning the game and unfortunately Gary had to fly back to New York later that week. He taught me that even good things can come from bad days.