Better Than a Blue Light Special!

Last week I was at Wal-Mart to buy a greeting card. I used the self check-out, scanned the $2.63 card, and fed a $20 dollar bill into the appropriate slot. Thirty seven cents came out of the change slot, and when I grabbed the change for the bills I found that I had $22! What a deal! I ended up with a card and more money than I came in with!

This policy will certainly ensure customers.

I found it funny, and then, I found myself with a $2.37 dilema. I was surprised at how tempting it was to keep the tiny windfall. I almost tucked in my pocket, I vacilated, hemmed and hawed, and in the end told a clerk. She looked surprised and called for help. It struck me as funny that they checked my reciept and I thought, "Who would make this up?"

After opening up the machine in ways surprising to me I walked out I with the card and $17.37.

I've had one other "Better Than a Blue Light Special" experience. It was years ago, before cell phones. I was on my way home from a youth event with a car full of middle schoolers. We were following a van carrying the rest of our group. Suddenly the van let off smoke signals and something sprayed my windshield. I'm no mechanic, but I knew that wasn't a good sign.

After pulling over, and corraling an excited bunch of pre-teens off of the highway we decided I needed to go into the nearest town and call for help. I was tired, anxious to get home, worried about our friend's van and frustrated. I loaded up my crew so there would be a few less kids wanting to play on the highway and headed to a pay phone. After I made the call I hung up, the phone made a sound I had never heard from a pay phone - and change started pouring out of the phone! Apparently I had hit the pay phone jackpot!

I was dumbfounded.

The kids were really excited! They saw free ice cream cones and drinks. I was caught, again, in a dilema. As tired as I was, had it not been for the kids, I would have pocketed the change and headed back out to the highway to wait for help.

But here I was, with a bunch of kids, coming home from a church event and presented with a "teachable moment". *&^%!!!

I called the operator, who was as clueless as I was. She connected me to someone, who connected me to someone, who had no idea what to do. After a few minutes of this I told the kids, "You win!" We got treats and headed back out.

Life is funny. And that's good. That's grace.

And it's all around us.