How The Michelin Man Saved My Day

Sperling Dunivan
2 min readNov 13, 2020

Today was simply not my day.

When I woke up and realized it was that time of month, I wasn’t thrilled. When I realized my supervisor decided this would be a great day to casually drop in and watch me as I worked for 2 hours, I was a bit stressed out. When I realized 2 minutes into the drive to my client’s home that I had forgotten my water bottle (and I was running too late to retrieve it), I was frustrated.

Fast forward a couple of hours. At this point I have a headache, I’m very thirsty, and I’ve endured a tantrum on camera. Only 15 minutes remain in the session. My supervisor has logged out, and this time is being spent building rapport with my client. I knew we’d be watching commercials or logo compilations on YouTube, this is normal for us. I didn’t know my client was going to start rolling around on the floor and laughing in glee.

Seeing the children I work with smile is something that makes me smile in itself. My day immediately lit up. I smiled and looked up from the data I was recording, then asked what was so funny. To my pleasant surprise, he was watching a video of the Michelin Man. I personally also adore the Michelin Man; the fact that his body has more rolls than a bakery is oddly charming to me. I imagine he’s squishy and quite nice to hug. I’ve laughed at the thought of what It would be like to poke him since I was a child.

This moment of shared joy over a mutual interest was so simple, yet it was a total day changer. I then took a piece of paper and a pen and proceeded to draw. I decided that the fun didn’t have to end when Ms. Sperling and her computer left. I drew him a picture of the Michelin Man, complete with a personalized “hello” and the Michelin Man’s name.

My client beamed upon seeing what I’d done. At this point, it was almost time to go. When I left, he was proudly showing his mother the drawing and reading the personalized text aloud. Walking out the door, I realized that this encounter had made my day.

The Michelin Man had made everything better. Imagine that.

WRITTEN BY

Sperling Dunivan

Just an empath trying to make sense of the world. I enjoy coffee and cats, too.

Sperling Dunivan
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Just an empath trying to make sense of the world. I enjoy coffee and cats, too.