There is a small seaplane dock near where I work, and I have been planning to go down and draw there for some time. I know that the days of drawing outside are becoming rare, so when it was sunny and warm enough to de-glove for a bit today, I figured the time had come.

A small public dock gets you very close to the planes, and there is a spot to sit, so this is where I perched. Not long after I sat down, a family of tourists from Mexico wandered past, and one kid, about thirteen or fourteen, peeked at what I was doing and was riveted. He hung back, and kept smiling at me and ignoring his parents’ urges to move on. There were two other boys of similar age with him, and he kept calling them over to look. The others thought it was kind of cool, but they were clearly sticking around because the one kid was so into it. The kid went over and negotiated with the parents, who started walking off down the seawall with their young daughter in tow. These three weren’t going anywhere—they hung around and would wander down the dock now and then, but my patchy Spanish was enough to help me deduce that this kid really wanted to walk away with this drawing.

My mastery of español, however, is more of the key-words-only variety—strong enough to carry me across Mexico alone by bus, finding me shelter and food along the way. But anything conceptual like “I would love to give you this drawing but I have a blog that I have to post this to tonight, and I would have to scan it first” is way out of my league.

Dilemma time: this kid may be a budding artist, and this might actually mean something to him. But, on the other hand, I’m not too far into this project, and it means something to me too. I could certainly do another drawing for tonight’s post, but I really wanted to post this one—plus, I’m way short on sleep and finishing now would mean an early bedtime. And then I realized there was only one way out.

Oh, Jesucristo, I’m going to have to start again, aren’t I?

They’re still pointing and talking at the other end of the dock, so I flip the page and start again, working quickly. My hands are freezing and I am good and ready to vamoose, but I have a soft spot in my heart for Mexicans. I can’t just slip away. They start coming back toward me and at that moment, mercifully, the propellor starts spinning and before we know it, the plane is gone.

So, what could I do? How do I give this kid, who has waited around for this long, a half-finished drawing? I looked up, shrugged, and in broken Spanish to match his broken English, inquired as to how much longer he would be in Vancouver. Three days. So I said that perhaps tomorrow, when the plane was back, he could return and finish the drawing himself. I handed him one of my pens. His eyes grew wide, he was incredulous. “Si, si, gracias!” Suddenly the gift had gone from one of a pathetic half-done page ripped from a sketchbook to the gift of my half of our genius co-created masterpiece. The kid was thrilled.

And that, my friends, is what you call marketing.