Flower Man

First – a public service announcement:

Please allow me to say a few words about Operation Christmas Child. Around this time every year, Samaritan’s Purse sends shoeboxes filled with gifts to needy children around the world. Churches in more than 100 countries participate in this program. We cram as much as we can into a shoebox which goes to a child who may never have received a gift before. The gifts are small and inexpensive – probably items that American children pick up with their allowance money each week (or get their moms to buy for them).

Last year I had the opportunity of hearing a woman from Eastern Europe speak about growing up in a Communist country. She was sent to an orphanage as a child, not because she had no parents, but because she was born with a physical deformity. One Christmas she received a shoebox filled with small gifts and a special message about the love of Jesus. This very small token changed her life, as it has done with thousands of children all over the world for more than 30 years. If you have the chance, please take the opportunity to make Christmas special for someone who can never repay you, but will be grateful to you for the rest of their life.

Now – time for a mostly true tale: Flower Man

One sunny day last fall, I met Bea at the mall and we had a fun day shopping for items to fill shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child. If two young girls had as much fun opening their boxes as we did filling them, those were two happy girls. Bea and I have a tradition of doing that every year. It is one of my favorite Christmas activities and makes the holidays much more meaningful.

After we stuffed our shoeboxes as tightly as possible, we stuffed ourselves with sesame chicken at our favorite Chinese eatery. The staff there is very generous with their portions. I had enough leftovers for two more meals. And their food is always HOT right off the grill. (Note to self: next time, if dining in, bring your own stainless steel fork. This will save you from having to eat with a melted plastic fork. Eating rice with curled fork tines is very difficult). It is probably a better idea to get that sesame chicken to go so there’s no melted fork OR burned tongue.

There was also a pretty neat dessert place nearby that sells hot cobbler (your choice of fruit) with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. We both experienced a bit of a sugar high and maybe a little dairy overload. We agreed that next time (and there will be a next time) one of us will get the cobbler, and the other will get the ice cream. Then we share. Bea couldn’t stop chattering for the rest of the afternoon. She gets that way when she’s tired, or sleep-deprived, or on a sugar high, or on a Dr. Pepper rush, or stuffed with Chinese food containing a generous amount of MSG, or a combination of any (or all) of the above.

Bea wanted to go to one more store across the five-lane highway, so I followed her in my car. The plan was to split up after shopping at the last store, and then go our separate ways. As we crossed the highway, we saw a man standing in the median selling bouquets of flowers. It looked like a dangerous place to stand. Traffic was going pretty fast. I wouldn’t even want to cross the street there, much less stand there and run back and forth to drivers’ windows. I was afraid a car would hit that guy and I said a little prayer for his safety.

Bea and I made a single pass through the store and called it a day. We were both so tired from our shopping spree, nothing looked appealing. Think of all the money we saved. We hugged each other goodbye, and got into our cars.

I aimed my car straight toward the traffic light and Bea steered her car to the right, circled around, and ended up on my right near the traffic light. She looked in my general direction so I waved. She looked away, then looked back in my direction again, so I waved frantically with both arms. Bea shouldn’t have had any trouble seeing me. You know how it is when you see a familiar face in a crowd and everybody around that face sees you waving, but the face you are waving to never has a clue. And really – we had just spent the last four hours together. Did I honestly need her attention that badly? By the way, when I’m doing my frantic waving, the upper arm flab gets into the act and starts swinging. Violently.

I saw the little flower salesman running in my direction and realized that he was looking at me. Then it dawned on me – he thought I was swinging my upper arm flab at him. Thank goodness for green lights. I took off and succeeded in NOT making eye contact with him. I heard him yelling something in a language I totally did not understand, but spoken in tones I fully comprehended. And he wasn’t telling me to have a nice day. I said another little prayer for MY safety.

My upper arm flab was still waving as I merged onto the interstate.