When my boys were teenagers, they loved the movie Billy Madison. Yeah, yeah, I know ... but they loved it. Between the two of them, they could quote almost every line from the movie, and they did ... a lot. Every now and again, one of the lines from the film will pop into my head, and I can see and hear Matt and Brad saying it and laughing like banshees. It's funny the things that stick in a mom's head from when her children were young, and it's especially funny when one of those things has reason to be repeated years later by someone other than her children. And such is the case with one of the Billy Madison lines ... such is the case when someone from my office quoted one of the lines to me last Tuesday.
Last week was a crazy one at work with lots of regular client work going on along with everyone in the office stressing over some special visitors who were coming in later in the week as well. Everyone was working together to get our building in tip-top shape so that everything would look great when our guests arrived, and I had spent most of Tuesday running up and down the stairs taking care of first one thing and then another. Sandwiched in between various building-related tasks, I would jog back to my desk periodically to do some editing work. And that's what I was doing at around 2:00 in the afternoon ... sitting at my desk reading through some ads and brochures.
Since my doctor has been fussing at me about not drinking enough water, I had brought a giant water bottle filled with ice water up to my desk, telling myself that I would drink every drop of it before I went home that evening. I had thrown some ice cubes into the bottle when I was downstairs in the kitchen and then filled it with water from the water fountain and placed it to my right on my desk. But I forgot one very important thing in the process of putting the liquid into the bottle ... I forgot to tighten the lid. Yep, you guessed it ... I reached for the bottle and lifted it to my lips to take a drink, and every single drop of that icy cold water came gushing out of the bottle and landed squarely in my lap. And needless to say, the minute the water hit me, I let out a big yelp and jumped up from my chair. The folks who sit closest to me heard the crash and heard me holler and yelled to ask if I was OK. And when I walked around the corner and they saw my soaking wet jeans, they burst into laughter as one of the young men said, "You ain't cool unless you pee your pants!"
While the young man's quoting of the Billy Madison line combined with the fact that my jeans most definitely looked as though I had peed on myself from my crotch to my knees was funny enough, what subsequently took place was even more hilarious. I knew that my jeans would never dry out on their own ... well, not for a long, long time anyway ... and I knew I had way too much to do to just leave and go home for the day, so I asked the people who sit close to me if anyone had some shorts or pants that I could borrow for the afternoon. One of the gals sent an email to everyone in the office for me (because my keyboard also got soaked in the dumping of the water episode) asking if someone had something I could wear. Her email began with the sentence, "Terrie had an accident and needs a new pair of pants or shorts." You can only begin to imagine the laughter and the commentary that ensued as people read the email. I'll spare you the rest of the details of the clothing items that were offered up to me, but I spent the rest of the day wearing a pair of baggy gym shorts that a guy fished out of the trunk of his car ... baggy black and red gym shorts with my navy blue thermal shirt, white socks and Converse tennies. Yep, I looked good, friends, really, really good.
When I first thought about penning this post, I couldn't help but think about the lesson ... the great big lesson, actually ... that I learned last Tuesday (other than the obvious one of always making sure the lid is tight on a bottle before I attempt to drink out of it, of course). See here's the thing ... the guy who gave me the shorts to wear is a freelance guy. He's a freelance guy that I've never had a conversation with; in fact, I don't even know his name, and I'd be willing to bet he doesn't know mine either. And he didn't get the email my friend sent because he's not on our company email. He heard me say I needed some replacement pants or shorts, and he went to his car and got his shorts for me. He didn't have to do that, you know, he sure didn't. I could have probably figured out a way to hold up the too large pair of khakis that were the only extra pair of pants in the building, but he knew that I could pull the drawstring on his shorts tight enough that they would work for the rest of the day. He didn't have to go to the trouble to help me ... I would have never known that he had shorts in his car, nor would anyone else in my office. But he decided to help me, a virtual stranger to him ... he went to his car and got his shorts and offered them to someone in need.
The lesson? Sometimes I slip and pour water on my pants. Sometimes it takes an embarrassing, humbling experience to force me to ask for help. Sometimes that help comes from the most unexpected sources. Maybe, just maybe, God is trying to tell me something, friends ... maybe He is indeed.
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