May 4 – “Oops”

Chris and I received unexpected blessings at church yesterday.  Aside from the usual spiritual ones of being with some great people, one of those great people had a real treat for us.  She started by hitting me at one of my soft spots.  She had discovered a stack of baseball cards that her grown children no longer wanted, so she gave them to me.  Now how much better could it get than that?  The top card was a Topps 1984 Nolan Ryan from when he was pitching for the Astros.  There appeared to be an entire Kmart set from around 1982.  There were a few other stars in the pack as well from that same era: Pete Rose (She said she was a big Reds fan.  I told her I was definitely not a Reds fan, but I was a Rose fan), Ricky Henderson, Carlton Fisk, Bo Jackson.  A few were from a cereal give-away.  There were even a few football cards included.  All in all, a greatly appreciated gift. 

Her present for Chris was a little different.  Seems she had purchased a ticket to the Galveston historical homes show, and was not going to be able to go.  She wondered if Chris was going to have time to use the ticket sometime yesterday or next weekend.  Well … yes.  Needless to say, our afternoon was suddenly a full one.  After a rather enjoyable lunch at McAlister’s Deli with our worship leader and his wife, we headed out.  First stops, though, were two Lemonade Stands.  It was the big Galveston push to teach kids how to be entrepreneurs.  There were lemonade stands all over the city, with the kids choosing a charity to donate their proceeds to.  We went to one set up outside a local bar and another at the entrance to Kroger’s.  The first one had a huge dolphin atop the stand that was spewing lemonade from his mouth.  Fascinating.  The second was set up on an Island theme, with the stand decorated to match, and the girls wearing grass skirts.  Both groups of kids did a great job. 

And that would have been a great day had we stopped there.  But as we left to start the homes tours we had a little … well, a literal bump in our figurative road.  Chris was backing out of the parking space when another car slipped into the road way right behind her and stopped.  No way Chris could have seen or predicted that maneuver.  Now if you have ever been in the parking lot at Kroger you know that it is the absolute worst arrangement in the history of parking lots.  Mix that with a beautiful Sunday afternoon and the boatloads of tourist traffic that brings, and you have “a lot” of cars.  Thankfully, Chris was barely moving when the cars introduced themselves to each other.  Our car was barely scratched.  The other one had a definite ding in the back door, though.  Kind of reminded me of the time I did the same thing.  Except I was driving a huge dump truck, picking up the garbage at a beer joint on the beach.  Another story.  Another time.

I called the police to make sure they didn’t particularly want to be bothered by such a minor issue.  I was right.  We exchanged insurance information and both went one our way.  All’s well that ends well, right?  No one injured.  Chris was a little shook up, she jumped right back in the saddle and drove away … carefully.  I don’t think we’ll be going to Kroger’s any time soon, though.  At least not on a Sunday afternoon.

1 Chronicles 16:34 says, “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.”

Father, thank you for protecting all of us in that little fender bender.  Thank you for the calm attitude of the other family.  Amen.