A Happy Drive to Church

We went to church this morning. Nobody ever admits to these kinds of things but even on Sunday mornings Jodie and I don’t always get along concerning certain aspects of life. This morning it was the question of when should we leave home in order to stop by the bakery to pick up some junk food (You see, this is not a church but rather a fellowship. Who would go to friend’s house without taking a food offering? Certainly not me:) Our problem is that Jodie likes to arrive on time but I have a tendency to try to arrive early for most everything. I just feel more relaxed when doing that knowing I wouldn’t be late.
So I decide that we should leave at 8:45am and she lets me know that there’s no reason to go that early. How about 9:00am? Why fight it? She agrees to 8:50. We finally leave the house at 8:55am. We drive down the mountain and park in front of the bakery, go in and return in about 5 minutes.
When I return to the car it is surrounded by the “street kids” who are trying to convince me that they’re hungry but more poor than hungry. I claw my way through them, we pay a market lady for bananas then drive off. No we don’t. One of the kids outside tells me we have a flat tire. Now I wouldn’t mind this but these tires have only been on the car for about two months. Of course the roads are a little harder on tires here thean the highways in the States. I remember going almost 15 years in the States before I had a flat tire. My first week in Haiti I had 3.
So I jumped out of the car, chased Josine, Jessica, and Jodie out of the car, and tried to fix the tire problem.
When I put the tire iron on the nuts I discovered that I couldn’t get the nuts off with my less than human strength. So I gave one of the “hungry” guys that were still standing there a job of doing the job for me. He did. I paid him some money. He was happy. It took us about us about 15 minutes.
I jump into the car and drive off thinking “I’ve got her now.” But being kind I calmly said “that’s why I like to leave early.” Did you feel that tender loving knife going into her back with those words? So we didn’t discuss it any further. I knew I lost that argument. She’s always right. Don’t tell her that though.
The food was good.
And so it goes!

John