June 28 – “All in a Dad’s day”

It didn’t take long for me to discover the real reason we were spending the night in Waco before heading to the camp.  Luke needed to have a sleepover with us in our bedroom.  AnnaGrace needed help with her pancakes at breakfast.  Christi needed help figuring out where to put the final screws in the piece of furniture she ordered from Ikea.  Josh needed me to go with Christi to pick up the new mantle he ordered for their fireplace (Of course he had the keys to his truck with him at camp.  I think it was more our car that he needed).  And finally Josh needed us to bring him his spare pair of sunglasses when we came.  His walked away at camp.  So … the real reason we spent the night in Waco?  So I could be Dad.  Felt good to feel needed.

But back to the mantle.  That’s a story in itself.  Christi and I drove over to their local Lowe’s.  They had ordered the mantle online and all we had to do was pick it up.  Josh had already received the obligatory phone call telling him that it was ready for pick up.  So we went to … pick it up, right?  Well … not so easy after all.  See, the computer kept arguing with them.  “No, that item is not here.  And even if it was … YOU CAN’T HAVE IT.”  After some more arguing back and forth, the clerk went back into the receiving area.  Lo and behold, what did she find?  Our mantle.  She loaded it up on a cart and brought it to the front.  Returning to the computer she attempted let it know that the item was in hand.  In fact she requested a paper printout of the transaction so we could take our mantle and leave.  But sadly, the printer was in collusion with the computer.  It, too, either didn’t believe the actual mantle could possibly be on the premises, or it was just as evil as that offending computer.  Strange things were afoot in Waco Lowe’s.  And they only got stranger. 

Finally, the manager Christi had called in became just as frustrated as we were (Well, maybe not quite as much as us.  After all, by this time we had been there almost an hour).  But the manager suddenly had a brainstorm (That’s one of the things managers do).  She told the clerk, “Agree with the computer.  Tell it that the customer canceled the order.  And then … sell it back to them … through Genesis.”  She said that last part almost in a whisper.  “Through Genesis.”  Sounded pretty scary to me.  In fact I wasn’t so sure we would still want a “Through Genesis” mantle.  With great trepidation, however, we watched the transaction occur.  Boom.  Done.  Once again, human ingenuity overcomes the technological beast.  And for all our time and trouble?  The manager gave Christi a 20% discount on the mantle.  All in a Dad’s day’s work.

Psalms 71:23 says, “My lips will shout for joy when I sing praise to you — I, whom you have redeemed.”

Father, thank you for helping those Lowe’s people figure out how to overcome the computer stubbornness.  Help me to be an overcomer and not a stubborn-er.  Amen.