September 12 – “Pay attention, Knucklehead”

I had yet another of those “Pay attention, Knucklehead” moments yesterday.  Chris and I had several errands to run before we leave for this trip to GlenRose tomorrow.  The usual stuff … the bank, the vet’s office for some flea killer stuff, Randall’s for dogfood and to pick up a prescription (Which, by the way, was another insurance fiasco.  They still had not corrected whatever was the glitch in their system that caused them to completely overlook, nay be totally blinded to, page four of my benefits book.  But that’s another story), and finally to WalMart for a pre-storm grocery run. 

Other than the prescription debacle things were going really well.  Flea meds procured, dog food safely in the back seat, bank deposit made.  All that remained was the WalMart run.  Simple enough, right?  Well, yes and no.  I mean, all the fabulously fun WalMart shoppers were out in force, so I had plenty of people watching to do while we shopped.  We even got a hug from one of the cashiers (now a customer service manager, thank you very much, how may I help you) who we have befriended over the years.  All was well.  Or so we thought.  As we emptied our basket into the car I began a mental rewind of the checkout process.  And nowhere in the rewind could I find the checker moving from her spot behind the counter to tally the case of water we had on the cart (You know the situation.  It’s a really heavy item, so why lift it twice?  That’s why they instituted those nifty hand-held phasers … er … scanners, wasn’t it?).  Hesitantly, I asked Chris to check the ticket to see if by some chance I had missed the encounter (not at all out of the realm of possibility).  But no.  The water did not appear anywhere on the receipt.  We simply had not been charged for it. 

Chris asked me what I wanted to do.  I took a deep breath before I answered.  It was now full-on raining, so I was not at all excited about walking all the way back inside hauling a case of water.  “I have to take it back in and pay for it, or I won’t be able to preach on Sunday.” 

Chris smiled that dazzling, all-knowing smile of hers and said, “They’ll probably be amazed that anyone would do such a thing.” 

She offered to drive me closer to the door, and of course I jumped at that chance.  I grabbed the heavy case from the back, dropped it into another cart, wheeled it up to one of those near-by self-service registers, and paid for it.  Then I wheeled it back to the front door where Chris picked me up. 

No one even noticed … except God.  Oh, and the thundering hordes of WalMarters who really didn’t care …

Psalms 98:2 says, “The Lord has made his salvation known and revealed his righteousness to the nations.”

Father, thank you for this weird sense of right and wrong you implanted in my brain – my very own, built-in “Pay attention, Knucklehead” sense.  Oh, and thank you for noticing.  Amen.