The amount of grace I used today was unbelievable. It was oozing out of me from all directions. On the telephone explaining a department policy over and over for 21 minutes–yep, grace was a-flowing. At the large corporate home improvement store with commercials narrated by Ed Harris and an orange logo, grace came flowing out when the manager didn’t want to hear me as I told her the employee found me as I headed to the parking lot to tell me he had found the perennials I was asking about and I was in fact making a purchase.
Still, that’ll be the last time I go there for a while. When I was in retail (picture me sitting on the porch in a rocking chair as I say that), I would have not said to the customer that the employee who kept working to solve the problem created the problem by not knowing his department. Well, he reached out to her and didn’t get much managerial support. When I went to her to ask if she knew about the sale, she quickly flipped through the circular and said it must not start till tomorrow. Feeling a bit like the butler in Clue (the others say to him “you did it!” to which he replies “If I was the murderer, why would I tell you how I did it?”), I dared to ask her why the company would run a commercial on Monday night for a sale that wasn’t going to start till Wednesday? She answered, “I don’t know, but we don’t have that sale now.” That’s when I left and the employee shouted across the parking lot to let me know he had found the perennials. So in the end, I got my on-sale perennials, as well as some mulch for my shade garden in the back yard, and a great lesson about yester-year.
On the way home I told my sons about how I would have handled this type of situation when I was a manager in retail. There was shock, awe, and a bit of amazement from the back of the rocket-sled as they discovered I had worked in retail. They asked me what store and I told them how I had worked in different video stores over the years, but I was a manager for a company called Planet Video which then changed the name to Moovies which is now defunct, as most video chains are. I told them how it was a small store that then grew to be a small chain until it was bought out by a larger corporation. I told them about all the small stores I shopped at as a kid. I decided that I’m not going to wait for Small Business Saturday. The next time I need garden supplies, I’ll go to a local nursery. When I finally pick the new paint color for the hallway, I’ll go to a paint store (if I can find one…I must admit I haven’t seen one in years…a paint and wall-covering store).
And then I told my sons about Woolworth’s and what a wonderful store that was. I loved going there when I was a kid. They then asked if I went to Dunkin’ Donuts as a kids and I told them nope. We went to the local bakery. We didn’t go to a chain pizza place but went to the local pizzeria. Local restaurants, local shoe stores, and on and on. I miss those days when you went to a show store for shoes and a toy store for toys and you get the idea. It is harder to do that today because the chains have gobbled the locals up, but I want my sons to have that experience, so I will shop as much as possible at the local stores.
Back to grace…I pulled even more grace out as younger son said he wasn’t riding in the car tomorrow but would walk to school. As the minutes ticked further into the 9 o’clock hour, we cuddled on the couch and I tried to dig deeper into understanding his dislike for school.
Turns out he thinks I throw all of his work away. He thinks I keep all of older son’s work. I pulled from the pile that has yet to be added to his “school work bin” the recent batch that had been selected for posterity. I explained that I don’t keep every worksheet because they each bring home three or four every day and we’d run out of room. We walked down the hall and he counted the three pieces of schoolwork hanging on the walls that were created by him. He acknowledged with a small smile that only one of his brother’s was hanging on the wall. I told him the copper cat he made out of a paper plate in preschool still hangs in my office.
We agreed on a challenge. He would finish all of his work at school, but his way. He thinks coloring a ditto for Earth Day (don’t get me started on how much paper that project wasted to commemorate Earth Day) was stupid and boring. I agree. But I asked him if it would have been more fun if he had colored the animals in less traditional colors. I asked why the squirrel had to brown…couldn’t he color it orange or rainbow or blue? He quickly got into the swing of things and together we remembered when he enjoyed doing school work (preschool) and how he could make first-grade work more fun. I told him he had to follow the directions and finish the work, but when possible, he could make it more “him”, a little bit funky, a little bit creepy (in an Addams Family kind of way…he sees things from a different perspective than other six-year-old kids).
A little bit of cuddling, a little bit of talking, and a little bit of grace helped younger son remember and embrace how smart he is. And how much fun he could make school work, if he didn’t worry so much about coloring inside the lines and remembering the crayon box has a lot of colors.
Finally, grace reminds me to slow down and realize how much better I am feeling, physically speaking. I don’t start to hurt until around 8pm. The past few days have really hurt by that point-think I may be over-doing it during the day in my new lesser-pain filled body-but it’ll get there. Still, after I post this, I will be hobbling in the most unattractive way to bed.
Department policy enforcement, commute traffic, unhappy managers at large corporate stores, over-tired younger son thinking his school work doesn’t matter, cat meowing to go out this late at night and driving me a little batty…for each instance there is grace. Grace…always flowing, always never-ending.
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