Confucius Says..

Confucius says PRACTICE WHAT YOU PREACH.

I am so excited to share how I have experienced these lessons lately because even though you are not going to believe it, these stories are absolutely true!

A few weeks ago my mom and I went to visit my grandma and decided to stop at Jaarsma's bakery in Pella. After picking out our items my mom handed the employee her debit card. The employee turned the card over and saw the card was not signed. She asked to see my mom's id. My mom likes to carry her debit cards in an unzipped pocket of a random jacket without her id. I do not know whether this is because she likes to keep her life interesting by always looking for her debit cards or if she keeps her debit card separate from her id so when she in fact loses her debit card, said individual will not also have her id. Regardless, my mom did not have her id. The employee said to my mom "Well, I will accept it this time but just so you know the next time you come in you must have your id or we will not accept your card."

As we walked out the door I said to my mom "Yah right- like she is going to remember your face the next time you're in and not accept your card!" Then my mom replies "Actually, I was here a few months ago and went to pay with my debit card. The lady looked at the name on the card and said 'Oh, Pauline Van Wyk, I think I have one of your credit cards in the safe in the back.' So I think she will remember me the next time I come in."  My mom had been there several months prior and left her credit card there. This lady had remembered that she had my mom's card and went and got it out of the safe. Did I mention this was months later! Amazing.

The second time I experienced this lesson was a few Sundays ago. One of my biggest pet peeves is people who have to tell me they are something in order for me to know. If you have to tell me you're smart, nice, thoughtful, friendly, a christian in order for me to notice- this is not a good sign. I'm generally an observant person. I should be able to catch onto these things without you telling me.

It was Sunday morning at around 10am. Tommy and I were at HyVee enjoying a nice breakfast together (the one on Mills Civic, of course, because that is the best HyVee in the metro area). Oddly, my phone rang and said "mom's cell" but there was a man with a heavy accent on the other side of the line. Figuring this was some weird interception of cell phone signals, I was getting ready to hang up when I heard ".... you know this number." I said "Yes,this is my mom's phone." The man said "I have her phone. Do you want to meet me?" I said "okay, but where are you?"  He replied "I'm on my way to Lutheran Church of Hope in West Des Moines." This was perfect. We were just a mile or so away. So Tommy and I finished our breakfast and headed over to the church to meet the man. As we met outside the church I said "Where did you find this phone?" He replied "Well, I was driving by this car and suddenly I saw something fly out of the car. I pulled over and found this cell phone on the side of the road. Somebody must have thrown it out of the car." I immediately knew his story was a bit off. My dad wasn't in the car so it was not possible that the phone got thrown out of the car and it was more likely that the phone flew off the roof of the car.  Regardless, I thanked the man and we went our separate ways.

I called my sister and said "when you see mom, let her know I have her phone." Sure enough my mom had been out in my sister's driveway searching for her phone. Apparently, my mom had placed the phone on the roof of her car. Driven from her house approximately 3-4 miles at speeds greater than 60 miles per hour before losing it off her car. She noticed the man pulled off the side of the road. My mom routinely gets phone calls of people complaining about her driving (she drives a Drive Tek car has the number written on the side). She immediately started searching for her phone and getting ready to pretend she was going to handle her crazy employee who was out there driving crazily.

That man could have done many things that day. He could have ignored the fact that he saw something fly off of or out of her car. He could have found the phone and threw it away. He could have sold it. But he didn't. He sought out its owner and saved my mom from what could have been a very bad day. (On aside, this is not the first time my mom has lost her phone off the roof of her car only to be retrieved later on the roadside, but that story is for another day).

Its nice to know that there are still some people out there who go out of their way to make somebody's day better.