The kindergartners, this time of year, wander around dazed, not knowing where they are going or what they are doing, just following directions with uncomprehending blank stares. As a bus driver, I have my hands full with making sure they get off at the right stop, released to parents or siblings or whoever is responsible for safely getting the rest of the way home.
School just started this week, and it has been a steep learning curve. For them. For me. Explaining safety rules, street crossing rules, and keep-your-hands-to-yourself rules; just setting the framework for understanding and following directions is what makes primary school teachers twitchy this time of year. Bus drivers get a wee bit nervous, too, I can attest.
This time of year, the kindergartners wear name/address badges so we can make sure they get off at the right place if they forget their stops. Surprisingly, most of them got off at the proper stop without my help. Most of them, that is. Not all.
At my second stop, after I unloaded, a father stepped up to the door and announced he was looking for Anna. "Anna", he called out "time to get off the bus."
I looked back at her, sitting stonily in the second seat staring straight ahead. "Anna, it's time to get off" I repeated to her, but she just looked at me blankly.
"I heard someone call me, but I don't know who it was" she finally said in a small voice, at which he called out "It's your dad, Anna!"
Her lip trembled as if about to cry, and she pleaded with me "I don't remember what my Daddy sounds like."
"I don't remember what my Daddy sounds like." Have you heard anything else that heartbreaking?
Well, the story has a happy ending, of course-upon my reassurances that it was, indeed, her father at the door of the bus, she launched herself down the center aisle, down the steps in a bound, and into his arms, but the depth of apprehension and tumult in her confusion stayed with me the rest of the day. How overwhelmed by a long stressful day would a child have to be to mistake the voice of her father, to wonder if it is really him calling her name?
Upon the same principle, how many times in life have all of us mistaken a trusted and loving and concerned voice, have questioned motives and purposes and methods of those who love us simply because we are overwhelmed and dazed? How many times have mothers and fathers and spouses and lovers and friends called and assisted and advised and offered their love to us, and we have been frozen in a moment in time and unable to respond? Glued to the sticky seat of a 97-degree bus baking in the Texas heat?
I think that just like the little 5-year-olds I have been shepherding onto and off of my bus, we are so apprehensive about the chaos of the moments we live in that sometimes we can't even recognize a simple calm voice when it calls our names. Whether this voice is parents or friends or God calling out to me that it is time to take the next step, to get off of the bus and start the next phase of my journey, I hope I can open my ears and my heart to the call rather than staring stonily ahead, rigid in fear and self-conscious embarrassment.
One of my favorite "camp songs" from my St. Francis days, Here I Am Lord, is about the call to mission of Isaiah, who was able to listen to his Father calling him to service of his people:
"Here I am, Lord
Is it I, Lord?
I have heard You calling in the night
I will go, Lord
if You lead me
I will hold Your people in my heart."
Oh, that I may be able to hear my Father's voice calling me and not be fearful or distrustful...
Friday, August 30, 2013
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Smells like charcoal
This past Sunday I spent a couple of hours helping cook for our church's Rally Day, which is the end-of-summer-back-to-school kickoff whose main purpose seems to be persuading new members who don't know any better into serving in various groups and committees. Older members know to steer clear of the seductively pretty tables adorned with pictures and slogans and glossy photos just like clever insects stay away from Venus Fly Traps...
Or maybe not. I have served on my own share of committees and in groups. Willingly, actually. Gladly, even. But it makes a catchy metaphor.
The meal was simple, burgers and dogs and beans and such spread on a few tables, community picnic food.
It reminded me of how much of our community life is spent around the table sharing a meal.
My first few years at St. Francis, the first church to really become a family to me, were spent on the outside looking in. I attended more or less regularly, but I knew no one deeply or even socially, so I stuck mostly to myself and didn't really take part in the deeper church community. That all begin to change one summer at Parish Retreat, which is a midsummer vacation weekend at Camp McDowell in Nauvoo, Alabama.
We attended that year out of duty and hope, determined to "get to know" some of the folks we saw in church each week, but it wasn't until the second day, Saturday afternoon, that someone's stunning miscalculation of the amount of charcoal needed in a grill created a crisis which put me in the thick of things.
Wes, one of the he-men of St. Francis, did a quick guesstimate and decided to cram about a hundred pounds (really) of charcoal into a standard 55-gallon drum grill, and lit it off to a chorus of “oohs” and “ahhs” from assembled children. As might be expected, 15 minutes later, the coals had reduced to a blazing incandescent inferno that heated the grill grates to a color that went straight past red and verged on the bluish-white normally found only in the core of a star. Some brave soul tossed from about five feet away a couple of steaks onto the grates, which promptly burst into flames as the grates charred into them with a horrid acrid smell of burnt meat. Not able to let food go to waste (Egad!), I waded through the waves of heat up to the grill to rescue those steaks. This action everyone obviously decided must be the cue to start handing me food to load up. No one else dared approach the grill, so they stood a safe distance away and handed me what they wanted put on. Steaks, burgers, chicken, chops, with the flames licking all around and my eyebrows smoldering.
You know, when your eyebrows are smoking, at least it keeps the sweat from running into your eyes. Just a handy tip.
I suppose it only took about 15 minutes at around 900 degrees to cook enough food for the entire parish, but it felt like a whole lot longer. No one else was stupid enough to get closer than two feet away, so I stood there, a set of tongs in each hand, flipping and turning furiously, hunting for the cool spot of the grill more desperately than the conquistadors hunted for El Dorado, with my smoldering eyebrows and charred fingertips, feeling like some demented symphonic conductor. I was far from the BEST cook ever to touch that grill, but I definitely was the FASTEST cook EVER that night.
That cemented my place in St. Francis. For months people would come up to me and remark upon the facts that 1) I showed remarkable courage in standing so close to a raging blaze 2) although they had wanted their steaks medium rare, the well done shoe leather I finally managed to chisel off the grates for them was actually quite tasty and 3) my eyebrows sure grew back nicely. Food always brings people close together, as does risk of bodily danger....
From that beginning I started to join groups, volunteer, participate. Sure, it was several months before my fingertips had prints on them again, but that was a cheap price to pay for looking up from the flames licking someone's breaded chicken patties into a fiery bitter char, to the crowd that formed three feet away behind me to see if I would, indeed, spontaneously combust, and realize I had found my HOME.
This Sunday nothing caught on fire and no one got singed. Well, maybe a little blister from touching a hot grill. But the same smiles and spirit of community were present. It is not coincidental that the primary ritual of Eucharist or Lord's Supper or Mass or Holy Communion or whatever you call it is based around breaking bread and sharing the cup together. Food is nurture and comfort and inspiration and family all in the same bite. When we eat together we lay down our weapons both physical and emotional, look each other in the faces, and share experiences.
So I'll see you at the next picnic or meal or dinner party or banquet. I'll probably be the one with burns on my hands and singed brows.
Or maybe not. I have served on my own share of committees and in groups. Willingly, actually. Gladly, even. But it makes a catchy metaphor.
The meal was simple, burgers and dogs and beans and such spread on a few tables, community picnic food.
It reminded me of how much of our community life is spent around the table sharing a meal.
My first few years at St. Francis, the first church to really become a family to me, were spent on the outside looking in. I attended more or less regularly, but I knew no one deeply or even socially, so I stuck mostly to myself and didn't really take part in the deeper church community. That all begin to change one summer at Parish Retreat, which is a midsummer vacation weekend at Camp McDowell in Nauvoo, Alabama.
We attended that year out of duty and hope, determined to "get to know" some of the folks we saw in church each week, but it wasn't until the second day, Saturday afternoon, that someone's stunning miscalculation of the amount of charcoal needed in a grill created a crisis which put me in the thick of things.
Wes, one of the he-men of St. Francis, did a quick guesstimate and decided to cram about a hundred pounds (really) of charcoal into a standard 55-gallon drum grill, and lit it off to a chorus of “oohs” and “ahhs” from assembled children. As might be expected, 15 minutes later, the coals had reduced to a blazing incandescent inferno that heated the grill grates to a color that went straight past red and verged on the bluish-white normally found only in the core of a star. Some brave soul tossed from about five feet away a couple of steaks onto the grates, which promptly burst into flames as the grates charred into them with a horrid acrid smell of burnt meat. Not able to let food go to waste (Egad!), I waded through the waves of heat up to the grill to rescue those steaks. This action everyone obviously decided must be the cue to start handing me food to load up. No one else dared approach the grill, so they stood a safe distance away and handed me what they wanted put on. Steaks, burgers, chicken, chops, with the flames licking all around and my eyebrows smoldering.
You know, when your eyebrows are smoking, at least it keeps the sweat from running into your eyes. Just a handy tip.
I suppose it only took about 15 minutes at around 900 degrees to cook enough food for the entire parish, but it felt like a whole lot longer. No one else was stupid enough to get closer than two feet away, so I stood there, a set of tongs in each hand, flipping and turning furiously, hunting for the cool spot of the grill more desperately than the conquistadors hunted for El Dorado, with my smoldering eyebrows and charred fingertips, feeling like some demented symphonic conductor. I was far from the BEST cook ever to touch that grill, but I definitely was the FASTEST cook EVER that night.
That cemented my place in St. Francis. For months people would come up to me and remark upon the facts that 1) I showed remarkable courage in standing so close to a raging blaze 2) although they had wanted their steaks medium rare, the well done shoe leather I finally managed to chisel off the grates for them was actually quite tasty and 3) my eyebrows sure grew back nicely. Food always brings people close together, as does risk of bodily danger....
From that beginning I started to join groups, volunteer, participate. Sure, it was several months before my fingertips had prints on them again, but that was a cheap price to pay for looking up from the flames licking someone's breaded chicken patties into a fiery bitter char, to the crowd that formed three feet away behind me to see if I would, indeed, spontaneously combust, and realize I had found my HOME.
This Sunday nothing caught on fire and no one got singed. Well, maybe a little blister from touching a hot grill. But the same smiles and spirit of community were present. It is not coincidental that the primary ritual of Eucharist or Lord's Supper or Mass or Holy Communion or whatever you call it is based around breaking bread and sharing the cup together. Food is nurture and comfort and inspiration and family all in the same bite. When we eat together we lay down our weapons both physical and emotional, look each other in the faces, and share experiences.
So I'll see you at the next picnic or meal or dinner party or banquet. I'll probably be the one with burns on my hands and singed brows.
Monday, August 19, 2013
The best race you can run
Sometimes the best race you can run is one you can't quite win.
We just got home from a beach vacation, a long weekend of swimming and sand and sleeping late, of eating seafood every night and shaking sand out of beach towels, clothes, and hair. Saturday afternoon, after a short swim, I lazed in a chair by ocean's edge to enjoy the mild setting sun and the crash of wave on shore and the tang of the salt air.
The clientele at this condo was predominantly families, and most of the people on the beach were parents with small kids. About a hundred yards away was a family playing by water's edge. Father, mother, daughter, doing the usual things with little plastic pails and shovels and sand.
After she got tired of digging in the sand, the daughter decided to challenge Dad to a race. Dad had the look of a long-distance runner, lean and long-legged and skinny, with the scruffy beard and various tattoos of a hipster. I guess even hipsters have kids sometimes. The daughter was about eight or nine and still had the pudgy torso and short legs of childhood. Mom counted down (on your mark....get set...go!!) with admirable enthusiasm, and off they dashed, just a short way down the beach.
They raced in the opposite direction, away from my vantage point rather than towards it, so I didn't see their faces as they ran. All I saw were the smooth strides of the father and the awkward, churning gait of the little girl as they paced each other.
You know how the race came out. Somehow she pulled ahead of her daddy at the very end, won the race even though it looked as if every arm-pumping stride she took was off-balance. Somehow, by a mysterious process known to all parents, she overtook his economical graceful gait with a burst of energy and won with the slimmest of margins.
From my seat, I could only see their backs.
Until they turned around to run back to mom. The little girl was laughing and squealing in triumph, her face lit up with the thrill of the race and her victory. Such a grin (ear-to-ear!!) I think we only see on the faces of the very young....or the very innocent.
But Dad looked EVEN MORE like he had just won the race.
And I really think he did. And I wonder if when he was a little boy, just starting to find out the strength in his own legs, he challenged his father to a footrace. If in the time-honored tradition, he also somehow outran his father. If in his own unearned but oh-so-deserved win he too had been encouraged to run and run and run, to set his mark high and strive for the mountaintops.
Nothing succeeds like success or just a taste of victory, a few steps gained on an understanding parent who knows that unexpected victory may strengthen and embolden the young or the weak to greater achievement and fulfillment.
Sometimes the best race you can run is one you can't quite win.
We just got home from a beach vacation, a long weekend of swimming and sand and sleeping late, of eating seafood every night and shaking sand out of beach towels, clothes, and hair. Saturday afternoon, after a short swim, I lazed in a chair by ocean's edge to enjoy the mild setting sun and the crash of wave on shore and the tang of the salt air.
The clientele at this condo was predominantly families, and most of the people on the beach were parents with small kids. About a hundred yards away was a family playing by water's edge. Father, mother, daughter, doing the usual things with little plastic pails and shovels and sand.
After she got tired of digging in the sand, the daughter decided to challenge Dad to a race. Dad had the look of a long-distance runner, lean and long-legged and skinny, with the scruffy beard and various tattoos of a hipster. I guess even hipsters have kids sometimes. The daughter was about eight or nine and still had the pudgy torso and short legs of childhood. Mom counted down (on your mark....get set...go!!) with admirable enthusiasm, and off they dashed, just a short way down the beach.
They raced in the opposite direction, away from my vantage point rather than towards it, so I didn't see their faces as they ran. All I saw were the smooth strides of the father and the awkward, churning gait of the little girl as they paced each other.
You know how the race came out. Somehow she pulled ahead of her daddy at the very end, won the race even though it looked as if every arm-pumping stride she took was off-balance. Somehow, by a mysterious process known to all parents, she overtook his economical graceful gait with a burst of energy and won with the slimmest of margins.
From my seat, I could only see their backs.
Until they turned around to run back to mom. The little girl was laughing and squealing in triumph, her face lit up with the thrill of the race and her victory. Such a grin (ear-to-ear!!) I think we only see on the faces of the very young....or the very innocent.
But Dad looked EVEN MORE like he had just won the race.
And I really think he did. And I wonder if when he was a little boy, just starting to find out the strength in his own legs, he challenged his father to a footrace. If in the time-honored tradition, he also somehow outran his father. If in his own unearned but oh-so-deserved win he too had been encouraged to run and run and run, to set his mark high and strive for the mountaintops.
Nothing succeeds like success or just a taste of victory, a few steps gained on an understanding parent who knows that unexpected victory may strengthen and embolden the young or the weak to greater achievement and fulfillment.
Sometimes the best race you can run is one you can't quite win.
Sunday, August 11, 2013
2013 or 1974
In our month with Marley this summer, I stayed on the go almost every day. In that time, we went to the beach in Galveston, to the Museum of Natural Science downtown, to the Blue Bell creamery an hour away, to the grocery store and the swimming pool and the neighborhood park and the mall and numerous other daily trips and errands. We played Wii games and Go Fish and Harry Potter Uno and colored and cut-out and pasted and glued. Stacey even taught her some wool-spinning basics and helped her make a crocheted potholder.
We were busy. Chasing around after a 6 year old keeps you on your toes. How ever would we have coped if there were MORE THAN ONE of her? Don't know how we would have found enough hours in the day to do everything that needed to be done. Much less cook and clean and pay bills and keep the house together. Whew.
In 1974, the year I turned 7, my parents got divorced. My brothers and I went to live with our grandparents from sometime in spring until December, when Mom got back on her feet financially and we moved back in with her. I was 6, Adam was 2, and Shawn was less than a year old.
My grandparents were around 60. Taking care of three young boys, two of them still in diapers.
Having Marley with us is always exhilarating, fulfilling, enlightening-and exhausting. After a month with her, spending my days at the pool or the park and my nights picking up toys and clothes and discussing the plotlines of Disney channel TV shows, I marvel at the devotion and energy and love my grandparents lived by enthusiastically taking us to raise 24 hours a day 7 days a week.
How many days this month was I exhausted at the end of the day? And I only had one of her to keep up with. My grandmother had three of us, and she was 15 years older than I am now when we came to stay. And I dealt only with a single month instead of an indefinite interim that stretched all through a long drowsy summer and almost until the next year.
How did she do that? How did she keep that smile on her face that I remember so well?
Through my life I have been conscious of several breathtaking instances of grace, of God's love in action here and working in my life. Of gifts and blessings and love being showered upon me through certainly no merit of mine but simply through those mysterious bonds which surround and strengthen me.
I am so grateful for the grace shown in the love and devotion of my grandparents who took us in as if we were giving them a wonderful gift by our presence with them, who made every day of that year feel like my birthday, who never let on that their feet hurt or their backs were tired from airplane spins. I am overwhelmed and aching with the memories of how much I was loved and so thankful that I can be a part of the eternal chain of passing on such grace and love to my own grandchild.
Oh, Marley, that you may feel about my home the way I felt about my grandparents' home.......
Monday, August 5, 2013
What kind of cookies do you bake?
Sometimes they just don't listen. Who? Everyone. In this particular case, it was my granddaughter Marley. Yesterday. With consequences. Disastrous consequences.
Ever since she got here last month, we had been planning to make chocolate chip cookies together. Meaning she had been reminding me that I had promised at every opportunity, and I had been evading and dodging and ducking and weaving, hoping she would forget or give up. No such luck. So yesterday I set the butter out to thaw and set up the Kitchen Aid mixer. Of course, being six, she wanted to do the entire thing by herself. Because she is not a baby. Because she knows how. Because she won't make a mess.
So she measured and stirred and poured, even cracked eggs with minimum of broken shell and mess. Kinda sorta listened halfheartedly to my instructions and cautions. Because of excitement. Because she has watched the cooking channel. Because she is going to be in first grade next year, by golly, and has little else to learn about the world as an empowered 6-year-old.
You know where this is going.
Yep, when time came to add the dry ingredients-a bowl of flour and soda and salt-to the wet slurry in the mixer, I told her to lock the mixer stand down with the toggle on the right, hold her right hand firmly on the top, and turn the switch on the left to the first, lowest, gentlest setting.
I think she heard all this step-by-step coaching, but I'm not sure she heard it, because here's what happened: She tilted the contents in, lowered the beater without locking it, and immediately flipped the left switch selector all the way up to the highest setting. Yep, #10. A mushroom cloud of flour puffed from the bowl and ascended to the ceiling, coating her from her head to her knees in the process. Fallout settled in every crack of the stove, the toaster, the coffeemaker. Meanwhile, the mix arm, unlocked, kicked up at the strain of the ingredients in the bowl and slung them in a spew out of the sides of the bowl. Raw flour and half-mixed dough spurted in a five-foot radius of the bowl.
Half an hour of cleaning later, we did get cookies in the oven. Half an hour of wiping. Cleaning flour off of her and her step stool. Vacuuming. Sweeping. Mopping. Remeasuring and fixing. Cleaning the insides of the toaster, getting spurts of flour out of the gasket seal on the fridge-don't ask me how it made it that far, but it did.
I didn't have to say a lot to her about what she did. She was pretty upset, and pegged her error pretty quickly as not listening to instructions and paying attention and Doing As She Was Told. Lucky she came up with all that on her own, saved me the time.
You know, with all that, the cookies were pretty good. It's hard to mess up chocolate chip cookies.
I'm sure I have made horrible errors of my own due to not listening. To being in a hurry. To excitement. To thinking I know it all already.
I wish that more of my mistakes were as easy to fix as a bowl of chocolate chip cookies.
Part of one of my favorite prayers from the Book of Common Prayer goes:
We thank you also for those disappointments and failures
that lead us to acknowledge our dependence on you alone.
Ever since she got here last month, we had been planning to make chocolate chip cookies together. Meaning she had been reminding me that I had promised at every opportunity, and I had been evading and dodging and ducking and weaving, hoping she would forget or give up. No such luck. So yesterday I set the butter out to thaw and set up the Kitchen Aid mixer. Of course, being six, she wanted to do the entire thing by herself. Because she is not a baby. Because she knows how. Because she won't make a mess.
So she measured and stirred and poured, even cracked eggs with minimum of broken shell and mess. Kinda sorta listened halfheartedly to my instructions and cautions. Because of excitement. Because she has watched the cooking channel. Because she is going to be in first grade next year, by golly, and has little else to learn about the world as an empowered 6-year-old.
You know where this is going.
Yep, when time came to add the dry ingredients-a bowl of flour and soda and salt-to the wet slurry in the mixer, I told her to lock the mixer stand down with the toggle on the right, hold her right hand firmly on the top, and turn the switch on the left to the first, lowest, gentlest setting.
I think she heard all this step-by-step coaching, but I'm not sure she heard it, because here's what happened: She tilted the contents in, lowered the beater without locking it, and immediately flipped the left switch selector all the way up to the highest setting. Yep, #10. A mushroom cloud of flour puffed from the bowl and ascended to the ceiling, coating her from her head to her knees in the process. Fallout settled in every crack of the stove, the toaster, the coffeemaker. Meanwhile, the mix arm, unlocked, kicked up at the strain of the ingredients in the bowl and slung them in a spew out of the sides of the bowl. Raw flour and half-mixed dough spurted in a five-foot radius of the bowl.
Half an hour of cleaning later, we did get cookies in the oven. Half an hour of wiping. Cleaning flour off of her and her step stool. Vacuuming. Sweeping. Mopping. Remeasuring and fixing. Cleaning the insides of the toaster, getting spurts of flour out of the gasket seal on the fridge-don't ask me how it made it that far, but it did.
I didn't have to say a lot to her about what she did. She was pretty upset, and pegged her error pretty quickly as not listening to instructions and paying attention and Doing As She Was Told. Lucky she came up with all that on her own, saved me the time.
You know, with all that, the cookies were pretty good. It's hard to mess up chocolate chip cookies.
I'm sure I have made horrible errors of my own due to not listening. To being in a hurry. To excitement. To thinking I know it all already.
I wish that more of my mistakes were as easy to fix as a bowl of chocolate chip cookies.
Part of one of my favorite prayers from the Book of Common Prayer goes:
We thank you also for those disappointments and failures
that lead us to acknowledge our dependence on you alone.
(So maybe a Kitchen Aid disaster in a kitchen is all part of a bigger purpose, too.)
Thursday, August 1, 2013
Dad Kit
Today I had to dig my Dad Kit out again.
Years ago, when the kids were in their first few grades of school, every year the school would sponsor a Christmas shop for them. Each year they would take their quarters and dollars to school in December and buy trinkets and tchotchkes and gewgaws for me and Stacey. Andrew was the canniest with his money, and would often pass by the shopping and instead present us with home drawn pictures on paper plates, but the girls almost always visited the Santa Store at their schools.
So I have amassed a collection of five or six Dad Tool Kits. You know the type, I guess. Three or four miniature screwdrivers and maybe a punch or a blunt knife blade in a plastic case. Not really big enough to exert any force on a real screw. Maybe a one-AAA flashlight, long since corroded out and died. Not really enough of anything as a gift, just to let you know the kids are thinking of you at Christmas even if they only have a dollar to spend.
But, you know, those kits are some of the handiest tools I have. Today Marley brought me an old toy of Sarah's to replace the batteries in it. The battery compartment was accessed by removing a couple of screws that look more like pins and make eyeglass screws look like carriage bolts. Take them out-why, I couldn't even see them!
So out came the Dad Kit, and the screws were extracted in quick time. There's even a tiny little pair of pliers in there, useless for anything else, to drop the screws back in and line them up when you are ready to reassemble. And most precious of all, even a magnifying glass to let you see what you are doing. So all the hundreds of dollars of drills and hammers and levels and flanges and whatchamacallits and thingamabobs, cordless and super-torqued and all, that I own, failed to do the job these little bits and ends of tiny screwdrivers did.
So once again the Dad Kit has saved the day, and made me think again of a time when sometimes a dollar your kid spends on you at Christmastime is more precious than all the expensive things you have. Once again, thanks to my kids for the priceless things they have given to me, free of charge and with no strings attached.
Years ago, when the kids were in their first few grades of school, every year the school would sponsor a Christmas shop for them. Each year they would take their quarters and dollars to school in December and buy trinkets and tchotchkes and gewgaws for me and Stacey. Andrew was the canniest with his money, and would often pass by the shopping and instead present us with home drawn pictures on paper plates, but the girls almost always visited the Santa Store at their schools.
So I have amassed a collection of five or six Dad Tool Kits. You know the type, I guess. Three or four miniature screwdrivers and maybe a punch or a blunt knife blade in a plastic case. Not really big enough to exert any force on a real screw. Maybe a one-AAA flashlight, long since corroded out and died. Not really enough of anything as a gift, just to let you know the kids are thinking of you at Christmas even if they only have a dollar to spend.
But, you know, those kits are some of the handiest tools I have. Today Marley brought me an old toy of Sarah's to replace the batteries in it. The battery compartment was accessed by removing a couple of screws that look more like pins and make eyeglass screws look like carriage bolts. Take them out-why, I couldn't even see them!
So out came the Dad Kit, and the screws were extracted in quick time. There's even a tiny little pair of pliers in there, useless for anything else, to drop the screws back in and line them up when you are ready to reassemble. And most precious of all, even a magnifying glass to let you see what you are doing. So all the hundreds of dollars of drills and hammers and levels and flanges and whatchamacallits and thingamabobs, cordless and super-torqued and all, that I own, failed to do the job these little bits and ends of tiny screwdrivers did.
So once again the Dad Kit has saved the day, and made me think again of a time when sometimes a dollar your kid spends on you at Christmastime is more precious than all the expensive things you have. Once again, thanks to my kids for the priceless things they have given to me, free of charge and with no strings attached.
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