I awoke to a rather pleasant surprise yesterday. It was trash day, so I dragged myself out into the early morning chill expecting to grab the handle of one of our great green monster cans and haul it to the street. When what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a vision of completion of that task so near. Yep. Apparently, a little no-holiday-needed elf had already posted our trash can out at the street. What a great, unexpected treat. Thank you, O Thou creeping do-gooder of the pre-dawn sultry darkness.
Kel came over for a staff meeting, so I put my pastor emeritus hat on. We spent some time planning for the upcoming Ash Wednesday service at church. I’ll be doing most of the teaching part about the origins of Mardi Gras and Ash Wednesday. He will join me for the more liturgical part of the service. It should be pretty interesting if you have never been to one. February 14 at 6 p.m.
Once Kel departed, we looked to the rest of our afternoon. The jaunt to Walmart was the most interesting. Of course I spent a lot of the time just watching people. But our simple checkout attempt almost turned into an altercation of sorts.
We were trying to get a gift card. Sounds simple enough. Especially since we waited in line to see one of the actual human being checkers. For some reason, though, she just couldn’t get the transaction to go through. She finally called a manager over to help, and it finally went through. The problems didn’t go away, however.
We then wanted to use the gift card to purchase the last few items. Our now-flustered checker swiped the card and … told us we still owed some money for the purchase. Wait, what? It was a brand-new card. She was getting more and more distressed, but gave it one more try. This time it went through, and she handed us the convoluted receipt.
Ever-vigilant, Chris began her usual routine inspection before we left the register. Needless to say, it was not an easy one to navigate. And that’s when it happened. The person in line behind us pushed his case of water bottles up to the register and rather angrily (and certainly rudely) snarled at Chris, “I don’t plan on waiting here all day. You can take that over to customer service and deal with it there.” Read here a long three count of silence as Chris slowly turned her head toward Mr. Rude 2024. To her credit, Chris managed to keep her composure as we eased away from the stand. I finished perusing the receipt. It was a little convoluted, as I said, but at the bottom line, it was correct.
I think Chris was ready to take down the other shopper, in spite of the fact that he outweighed her by a good hundred pounds. She kept her cool, though. I was proud of her restraint.
Ah, Walmart. You never cease to entertain me.
Mark 13:33 says, Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come.
Father, bless our dear trash can elf. Oh, and please be with that guy who was in such a hurry. Help him find his place of peace. And thanks for protecting the poor old couple living on social security that he was terrorizing. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment