There was a piece of broken oak flooring in the master bedroom...I lived with it for the seven and a half years we lived in the house. Our last two tenants lived with it...but the next tenant...Nope. John was determined to replace it.
But you can't just buy a couple of pieces of oak wood flooring...gotta' buy a case. But you can borrow a sample board for twenty five bucks....if you don't bring it back, they keep your deposit. I was fine with that. Twenty five bucks was worth making my man happy. I would just give up the deposit.
Little problem. The boys at the big-box home improvement store could not figure out how to charge me the deposit.
Manager, "You are going to bring it back, right?"
Me, "Of course."
Jack, "Mom?"
Me, "Of course."
Manager, "Don't worry about it."
Of course I bring it the house and John dismantles the sample and puts it into the floor....and Jack and I look at each other. John is confused...we fill him in...now what do we do?
1) Go back to store and tell them it got tossed in the garbage! So lie to hide the fact that we stole? Seems like a problem.
2) Don't worry about it...it is just a sample anyway. Sounds like stealing to me.
So what did we do? We went back to store, same kid was on the register, same manager was also working. We explain that we kept the sample and that it was now a part of our floor. We would like to pay the $25.00 fee.
Manager is annoyed..."Don't worry about it. I don't know anything. Keep your mouth shut."
John and I, "We don't want to steal it. How can we pay for it?
Kid at register, "I don't think I have ever had a customer insist on paying for something."
John, "That is too bad. Can you do it?"
It took them about ten minutes to figure out how and what to charge us but they finally did.
Kid at register, "That was something. It really was no big deal."
Me, "The Rule Book says 'Don't steal'...not 'Don't steal bit things but little things are okay.'"
Kid at register smiles.
Integrity is inconvenient. What is the old expression? The world is equally shocked at seeing Christianity criticized and practiced. Nice that we got to shock someone this weekend.
