My Church is Awesome People

OK, so it's not grammatical, but it's TRUE.

To begin, I've been meaning to get another bookcase for a while. Haven't been shopping for one, really -- just reminding myself frequently that I need one. Then today, for no real reason, I went to the Walmart on Epps Bridge. (NOT my side of town, really, but I went to Cracker Barrel for lunch, which is right in Walmart's parking lot.) Anyway, I parked by the garden shop, since I can usually get a closer spot to the door and checkout's usually quicker there. And in the open air section where plants are kept, there's a whole slue of clearance furniture: TV cabinets, chests-of-drawers, and one bookcase.

The bookcase is solid pine, already assembled (a display model), and in really good shape, with one glaring exception: it's missing the three adjustable shelves. It was normally $80ish dollars, but on clearance for $40. So, a pretty good deal. I asked the garden shop lady about the shelves, and she told me they were missing. So, I pointed out -- cunning haggler that I am -- that the other clearance furniture was also being sold at half of the original price, though still unassembled and complete, in the original boxes. She dropped the price to $30 and I bought it. (I figure I can go to Lowe's and get material for shelves. I'm planning on painting the thing anyway, so I don't have to worry about the wood matching.)

Then my brilliant plan hit a snag: the bookshelf won't fit in my car.

Doh!

And how was I going to find somebody with a truck at 2 pm on a Monday afternoon? Most of my friends here are students who drive little cars like mine; my friends who aren't students have REAL JOBS. So, who did that leave? Katy's got an SUV, but she was in class; ditto for Jeff (pickup) and Jill (SUV). Rob's got a big JEEP, but he's in Scotland. (Cool, but not convenient.) Bryan had a truck when he brought my mattress over -- but, no, he borrowed that. Argh!

So, I called my church, Redeemer Pres, and laid my sad, sad case before one of our sympathetic and kickawesome secretaries, Debby (I hope I got that right!). (I assume she's a secretary, since she was there answering phones. Maybe not.) So, first of all, this is not the office lady I know, Kristin (who is also kickawesome and super nice, and the first Redeemer Pres person I ever met). I've seen Debby, but never met her officially, so I didn't know which face I'd recognize belonged to the voice on the phone. (Ah, circumlocution...) In fact, I was a little worried that she wouldn't believe my story. And, anyway, I wasn't sure what I expected her to do -- recommend somebody to call, maybe.

Instead, she drove to Walmart in her big red pickup and got my bookcase herself. Unparalleled kickawesomeness, if you ask me, and far above and beyond the call of secretarial duty. (I'm told that the associate pastor fielded the phones while she was gone, which is laudably kickawesome on his part. Go Don!) She had to go back to work with my bookcase, but later she brought it by my apartment on her way home from work. Which I was cool with, because I still had shopping to do -- I saw the bookcase before I'd even walked inside Walmart, remember. So, here's the big red truck:
And here's my new bookcase:
The Moral of the Story: My Church is Awesome People. (And a corollary, David Doesn't Always Think Things Through Very Well Before Acting. But we knew that, no?)