Goodness

Jasmine and I were at the grocery store, some while back. She was riding in the kiddie seat, her back to the aisle we roamed.

Perhaps I was talking to her, or otherwise distracted from my driving. I ran the cart into a pole quite suddenly with a good, metallic crash, startling us both. "My goodness!" I said to her, and smiled over our mutual start.

Jasmine was (and is) a parrot for short expressions and emphatic words. "My goodness!" she repeated. I turned the cart and maneuvered us around the pole, pointing it out as I went by. "That's what I crashed into," I explained to her, and she reached over to touch it curiously, then sat back again.

"Bye bye, goodness," she said as pole receded from view.