![Random mermaid](mer.png)
I was also very lucky to grow up on a block surrounded exclusively by elderly people. It was a rare safe street where I could just zoom around, find one of my bonus grandparents, and throw myself at them. One would come and pick me up in his wheelbarrow when he was going to work on his garden. One converted the shed she never used into a playhouse for me. Another, as I got older, would constantly palm me cash. He would do it to my friends when I brought them over too. It felt excessive but I know he loved me and he loved to do it. I found out a few years after he passed about a ballpark for how much money he actually had and no longer felt guilty for accepting. Almost all of them are gone now and I miss them terribly.