Did that really just happen?

I told this story verbally at least five or six times Labor Day weekend. Hopefully the delay in putting the story into writing will change the telling up a bit, though the story is so long that I never had a memorized version.

Some years ago I bought a house. On the day I moved in, I went to Best Buy and said, "Give me the biggest tv you've got!" I made that part of the story up, but it was big. The sixty-five inch rear projection tv was admittedly too large for the room I put it in, though I didn't mind at first. After a few years when flat screens had become the norm, I was ready for something that took up less space. The problem with making that happen was that I had this behemoth to deal with.

Some friends of mine are adopting twins from Haiti. If you don't know anything about international adoption, I'll sum it up for you. It's expensive and takes an indefinite amount of time. When I saw on the facebook, that they were having another community yard sale to raise funds, I declared that the time for buying a new television had arrived.

I went back to the Best Buy and bought a much flatter but not that much smaller screen. With my usual amount of fore thought, I drove my Honda Civic to the store instead of the Ford Escape that was sitting unused in the driveway that day. I was able to wedge the television into the trunk after laying down the back seats. The Best Buy employee wanted no part in the loading process. Though the box was a little smashed, the tv made it home fine.

Whew, that was so much back story.

I borrowed Dad-o's truck and with some help loaded the tv into the back. As I was driving down the highway, I look over at the honking car next to me. I am incapable of reading lips and am only slightly more skilled at reading hand gestures. The hand gesture looked like break, but when I checked the mirrors the straps both appeared to be in place. Being the paranoid that I am I pulled over, and the car did as well.

It turned out that the guy wanted to know if the television was broken. He has one just like it that is broken. I told him about the yard sale that the tv was destined for. As I was giving him directions to the yard sale, I remembered the old saying, "a sale in the hand is worth two in the bush." So I said, "since this is already loaded, let's just take it to your house."

He called the repairman with whom he had previously discussed his broken television and was told that mine was worth $50-$100. We split the difference and agreed to $63. Later I did some ebay research and found people asking for more money but not getting any bids.

As I was following him home, it crossed my mind that this could be an elaborate plan to lure me into the country to rob me. I wasn't too worried though because he was wearing an Uncle Si t-shirt. We got to his house, and after running an extension cord out to the truck to prove that it worked, we unloaded the television.

I made my way on up to Beebe and put $34 of the $63 into Dad-o's gas tank. I had planned to not tell my weekend house guests about the new television, but since they beat me to Beebe and there was this great story, I wasn't able to bury the lead. If I had been able to keep that secret, the new tv might have gotten a better reaction than it did from those sleepy girls the night before.

What are the chances that I would have been driving that stretch of road at the exact same time as someone who was looking to buy that television? Very slim, I would think. The fact I was driving a Sandlin truck might have influenced it. Crazy stories happens to Sandlins with stunning regularity. But I am giving credit to God on this one. I am always reluctant to say, "God did it," about anything happening in this day and age. Even now, just two weeks removed from the event, I can feel my instincts kicking in telling me to hold my tongue. When it was happening though, I had no doubt that God made that sale possible. Sixty-three dollars won't go that far in covering the adoption expenses, but this may have been as much about strengthening my faith as caring for orphans.