He smiled and right there on the busy sidewalk, surrounded by rushing commuters, opened his brief case, then took out four little squares of paper and a dropper bottle. The squares each had "25¢" written on them and I remember thinking that it had been a long time, decades even, since I'd seen a cents symbol.
He put one large drop of brown watery liquid onto each square, placed them in my hand and wrapped my fingers around them. "Don't worry," he said, "These will fix you write up." Then he was gone. I don't think I even thanked him because right about then a truck pulled up next to us hauling a giant mirror on wheels and I had to stop for a minute and admire my light brown curly hair in it, even going so far as to to run my fingers through the curls.